 Good afternoon, and thank you to thank you for joining us today and welcome to our final version of the agriculture challenges webinar Today, we are we talking about weaning calves Before we get started, I'm gonna go over a couple of housekeeping items One if you're not speaking, please mute your mic so we don't get feedback from you And then secondly, we will be holding all questions until the end of the webinar So you either type them in the chat box and we'll make sure that they get addressed at that time or you can ask them through your audio at that time As we all know there's been a lot of challenges this fall one of them being with the conditions that weaning has been delayed and so folks are looking for some Different methods and are having to do things in a different way than they normally do and so We have three of our extension livestock specialists joining us today to talk about some of those considerations Our first speaker is going to be Yuri Monteholy. He is our beef cattle specialist and he's going to be talking about Some background on weaning and some different methods for weaning All right. Thanks Miranda. It's a pleasure to be Here today and also taking my time to think about good reasons for weaning and also weaning methods I think this is a very relevant topic Yes and weaning is a is a management procedure That will be part of the the production of beef cattle It can be done in a diverse of manners and each of those has their advantages and disadvantages And are suitable to different production ceases and and realities of each farm. So exploring some of those Aspects are quite important I did take my time for searching for a good definition of a weaning in the dictionary That would apply about to a cattle Perspective and I and I failed on that so end up creating An adaptation on that. I think that makes a little more sense from a beef perspective So would be the weaning would be the process of causing a calf to stop feeding on its mother's milk To rely completely on other sources of feed and to live without the cow's company At least temporarily for the purpose of beef cattle farming. So I think that makes a little more sense from our for our industry and interestingly Weaning doesn't mean that Is is an interruption between the bond between a cow and a calf I'm sure that farmers have a lot of stories to share of cows and cows that after weaning they still have a An affection relationship And that's quite interesting when you see a cow herd when you see like this kind of families Together and this drawing here is an example of a a cow that has her daughter That's nursing her and the older daughter that's being groomed. So It is an interesting aspect of that as well So why should be weaning the calves? I think that one of the biggest Points would be to improve the efficiency of nutrient utilization so Going back to the roots on this like when you think about livestock. I really think about like Producing products using solar energy And to that process you'll be growing growing our Pastures and grains and all the feed stuff and then feeding to a cow Of course that the young calf Is greatly benefited by consuming the milk from the cow and that's why the cow produces it However, uh, in the way that we produce cattle, uh, we can be weaning the animals before the cow Stop producing milk and that can be a quite efficient manner of sparing Uh feed feed stuff and energy I apologize here for this little, uh Rabbit here is supposed to be a calf. I just couldn't find a calf. So then I put the rabbit I even trimmed the ear so it looks more like a calf Uh, but basically, uh, when you break that, uh, and start feeding the calf directly feed stuff You are more efficient from from a feed utilization perspective By doing that, uh, we also it is important like for saving for spare reserves in the cows and helping to gain body condition And I think this this year in particular are very important because many farmers and producers are short of feed So if they can spare energy in the cow, that's quite beneficial similarly like When you're winning when winning the cows from the cows The cows can be fed like a poor quality reaction Or feed stuff than the cows. So then can be splitting that and use the nutrients like more wisely in the farm And of course that by winning you also enable us to be selling the the cool cows and moving forward with the cows either like For backgrounding or for selling to another farmer. So that's also an important part of that And the success of all this procedure has a lot to do how we do the winning So that's like, uh, one key aspect aspect of this And there are quite a few different procedures and variants on how we we how we win the the cows Be going through three men types And uh, I put this kind of a medieval picture here of this thing full of spikes Just to remind myself that uh, the less suffering the less Rodeo the less running around that you have When you're doing your winning procedure the better be for the cow the better be for the calf and the better be for the farmer's pocket So, uh, the smoother the better and I'm sure that farmers, uh, agree on that So no need of that type of stuff And we start with the traditional the coral winning I don't know if there is a different name for this type of winning, uh, in North Dakota But it is a very popular type of winning and basically under this scenario Cows and calves are abruptly separated Uh, a lot of times calves are kept in unfamiliar places like a novelty aspect And also cows are supposed to comingly and I'm sure that the doctors talk will be talk a little more about comingly in a few minutes Uh, as we can hear This process is related to excessive bowling and uh, I I found a very very easy video to show this There are some scenarios that I'm sure that farmers would be without sleeping for a couple days in a row And this type of winning is also is related to triggering other other type of stress responses However, it is considered practical, uh by many by many people a lot of times to be sincere in this Uh, then was a winner and truck at the same day. So there's some, uh considerations about that But that's one of the methods And uh In the past a couple years ago, I did a research on this type of winning I was really interested to learn how much does the winning uh, the cruel winning method impact the well-being of calves And I did something very simple. I first I measured the cortisol level in those animals At winning and then three days later and also check the weights at winning and three days later and you could observe that The cortisol levels increasing about 75 percent within three days And uh, those animals on average they lost 18 pounds each Within three days. So that is a considerable loss. It has a lot of repercussions for the long term productive of that animal And also for the farmer's pocket And another type of winning that's a bit more popular. It is Uh, the fence fence line winning So basically as the name implies cow and calves are are split into adjacent fields Uh, they can see and seep each other, but circling, uh, is not possible Um, uh Found like some recommendations of people using a fire bar barb wire prosa electrical to make sure that uh, they don't get together again And gradually as the days goes by, uh, cow and calf lose the interest in each other Uh, and then after that the cows can be moved to another place and there's some interesting handling considerations about this I did find an article, uh on a Home page. It's called the on pastor That really describes the management like in ranges, uh for that like how the how to move the horses How how much room we need to have from the cows and calves to do that in a very smooth manner And if you had a chance to check it out, please take a look. It's very well written like in a very good, uh, type of word That ranges you certainly enjoy that And then the third matter that I want to talk to you will be the nose flap winning also called the two step winning This is becoming more and more popular and basically consists of, uh, placing a temporary, uh Plastic flap Around the calf's nose It allows the calf to drink water and to to grass or to eat from the bank, but not nurse So he cannot get the milk from the cow It's normally removed within a week. Some people do three or four days depending on the system And it does require restraining the calf twice to put the flap into remove which for some people Could see that as a drum back And there are some limitations for large calves like sometimes the flaps are not big enough for the larger calves, but Yes, and now so there's some comments or some discussion about the flaps that have spikes So far couldn't find a single as uh evidence supporting that the flaps should have Spikes is seen that the smoother ones just look work as good So I think that uh, they can we can go without those spikes And just for wrapping up, uh, this presentation This is a extension material from the universe of tennessee Uh, where they compare the fence line the two step winning with the flap and also the corral winning, uh Just the corral winning or the corral winning with the horn at the same time And just to save time. I want you to go to the very last column here Where I have the overall gain over 58 days post-winning and then you can see that both the fence line and the two-step winning they have very comparable Gains over that period and then when you did the corral winning Um, just the corral winning we had like about 30 pounds less gain over that period And then when you had the corral winning, uh, associate with the the horning. That was, uh, Another loss of 20 pounds 20 pounds So you you talk about the range of 30 to 50 pounds here that can be gaining in your calves according to the type of winning that you use So I think this is quite relevant and can touch really hard on people's uh pockets and hearts too And that's all I have and if you have any question, please Seek for support of your county agents and also feel free to contact me if you can help with anything else. Thank you Thank you, Yuri Our next speaker is dr. Jerry Stucka and he is going for the extension veterinarian here in Fargo And he's going to be talking about health concerns during we need Yeah, thanks Miranda Thanks, Yuri. I just uh, just to follow up a little bit on Yuri's comments about fence line waiting There is actually a timeline waiting or corral line waiting as well. So you can Separate those cows and calves in a pen And have the cows on the outside of the pen and that works pretty well Number of our producers do that So, well, let me just make a few remarks about weaning management Wars are relates to health So I think about weaning and the risks involved with with weaning and the stressors that come Come with it and one of the big ones that we oftentimes forget about Based on on the ranch of origin of these calves is that In most ranching operations these cows are not in the same pasture both from the long So when I bring calves in from different pastures, I separate the calves and the cows All the calves now go together that haven't been together Throughout the summer grazing season. I introduce a little bit of what I call a psychological stress Because those calves end up having to kind of re-establish pecking order within that new larger group And it does cause some stress in those calves and I would Say this from my observations. It's probably the number one stress that brings on respiratory disease in in wean calves It's the home England effect So always think about that And we'll talk about that the next slide how we might alleviate some of that calming stress That occurs from different pastures Uh, pen conditions can be a stressor too and now the ground is frozen. So you may have some really hard sharp surfaces On the pen, um, you know, if possible to smooth them out, you know, either with a blade or some type of Scraper it would it would help to alleviate some of those conditions that can lead to things like Uh, lameness and foot rot and that sort of thing Yuri already talked about the procedures themselves and any way you wean calves Keep in mind that low stress methods Of separating and sorting and and keeping cattle and hot calves and cows apart from one another Really contributes to reducing the overall stress and and really it relates to That calf losing the companionship of its mother and also the nursing The nursing stress that that you've now allowed to happen and So one of the reasons that nose flaps works so well is that it it removes one of those stressors It removes that pacifier effect if you will In those calves, so every every little thing here is is a stress on those calves and doing it in a in a manner that kind of Reduces the risk from low stressors makes a different step and finally just a couple comments about vaccination The philosophy of vaccination should be that it has to be necessary in other words The vaccine the hole that I'm going to put into the height of an animal carries an antigen or an organism That it's necessary for me to vaccinate because there's a risk there And there's enough evidence that tells me that it works in other words It's effective and finally that it's safe to use the pretty simple philosophy to follow it Now how to recommend that you visit with your veterinarian about exactly what that protocol is So the next slide here is just some options to reduce that some of the stressors that We talked about colder weather will firm pins. We already talked about that and scraping pens can Smooth out some of those rough edges Remember, you can still move a mirror because most of the time in the mirror is not Not solid yet. We still have some days here that We'll keep it from freezing To that firm stage Provide in pen bedding if you're weaning in pens your corral line or pen line weaning Make sure you got bedding in that Something that insulates that ground from that calf free to make a difference for calf comfort And I would argue vaccinating calves while they're still with the mother Is the preferred method if you're weaning tomorrow, it's it's a little late It's not that you can't wean. It's not that you can't vaccinate when the calves are wean You're just adding one little more stressful Event into that calf life. So now you've got separation. You've got lost milk You may have co-mingling and I'm on a vaccinate at the same time. So that's kind of four stressors put together And the other way to I mentioned earlier that Number one stressor that I see in calves in larger ranches is this co-mingling stressors person You put this group together all in one big group And and the way to alleviate if you can and that management allows Actually feed those cows together at least for a number of days I don't have the magic number. It might be four days. It might be seven days. It might be longer depending on how large of an area you're feeding these cows And and that also allows those calves to to learn how to eat so that you've removed another stressor from that situation So those are some things that are available to you Finally, I just want to point this out Most of us that wean calves Our expectation is to pull basically none But certainly less than five percent of the group should experience any post-breeding illness from the DRD and rest of the body And this this little cartoon here is just a way of thinking about whether the signs and symptoms of sick cattle Cattle other off by themselves cattle that have diarrhea cattle a hard time breathing if you get into this stage It's too late They're running high fevers and these are just little cartoon characters exhibiting different signs and symptoms that cattle might demonstrate If they're not feeling well, and that's not always related to respiratory disease. It can be related to undergone As well Just another thing too. Once the cattle are weaned and the bell rings out of them And they're not taken after their mother And there's no problem with when they'll camp on the bigger ground They can be done pretty easily on the top ground So spread them out a little bit Maybe they can pull them off So thanks a lot. I appreciate the opportunity to visit with you just a little bit about Weaning that Thank you, Jerry So our next speaker is going to be dr. Carl Hoppe Um, he is the livestock system specialist at the Carrington research extension center And he's going to be talking about some of the challenges with the conditions and wean This year Good afternoon. Welcome. Yes the opportunity to wean calves. There's always issues that show up and we'd like to visit a little bit with them today There's always behavioral issues at weaning time Cavs are such social creatures there with cattle and they have that dirt and herding stink that just creates a An environment where they want to be together and when you separate them across from each other Cavs will even if the cow is on the other side of the fence the calf will still walk the fence looking for the cow or looking for some type of Um reaffirmant that they are not totally separated away from the rest of the herd Of course calves will beller and ball try to make some type of noise Which if they continue to do that can really wrestle up the rest of the calves and create everybody at a certain uneasiness of what's going on and Trying to reduce that will certainly help uh ease the transition to full weaning Um calves in unfamiliar locations. We talked about it earlier. We'll definitely have to figure out where new things are at Um, if they've never seen a feed bunk before that'll be a new experience If they're never drinking out of that particular water, it's will be a new experience Even the type of feed they're provided will be a new experience for the calves. We'll talk a little bit about that I like to remind myself that calves like to adapt or animals like to adapt to one thing at a time So if they got a new surrounding, they shouldn't have new types of feeds to eat They should know where the water is and they should figure out Feed the same type of feed they have been eating out of the same type of feed that they're used to Being weaned was just enough to stress right there So the question I always run into in weaning calves is are they adapted to the feed bunk and the feed? So there's two different things going on here first if the calves have been out in pasture with a creep feeder They figured out what a creep feeder is and what they're eating And if you take that same creep feeder and put it into a pen when the calves are weaned The stress of figuring out where the feed extra feed is at is a lot limited um That's not the case if calves have never seen a creep feeder out on pasture And then that creep feeder is placed into the pen with the calves at weaning time a couple issues are going on then They're not used to the feeder. They don't know what the feed is They haven't seen that type of feed and if they get hungry they might over consume So some type of limiter should really be used in that separate situation or at least avoid Um making those types of changes I like to think that we need to teach our calves how to eat and when to eat It's good that mother does it the cow does it but when we wean the calf We take on that role of trying to introduce the calves what's going on So one way to approach this is to feed the cows the same type of feed the calves are going to get Prior to weaning so if the calves have never seen silage before and it's this time of year and have a silage pile Feed the cows some silage. They don't have to get a full ration They don't have to have completely replacement for everything else that's going on out in the field But at least they'll eat some feed and the calves will observe that they'll see the smell They'll know what's going on and they'll come to it later when they're weaned Distillage grains is the same way even grain like corn grain A mouthful of corn grain goes a long way in teaching the calf that it's good things to eat But he just doesn't know how to eat it in the first place if you provide some of that to the cow That's certainly work out now a last thought here would be Cabs are used to eating the same type. Well, they're out on pasture So whatever they're grazing if it's going to be bluegrass or brome grass or some type of cover crop grass Whatever that is that's what the calves would like to eat when they're weaned because that's what they're used to If you're going to be feeding them if they're out grazing an alfalfa field because it's froze off and you give them alfalfa There might be an okay transition there, but please be aware that Overconsumption of alfalfa on a hungry calf could lead to bloating So sometimes we don't want to create more problems by how we feed them than just weaning So fence line feed bunks are a great thing totally mixed rations I work very well. We can have step-up rations that Increase the amount of grain in the rations So when you first start off, please put long stem hay in the feed bunk And then pour some of the totally mixed ration on top of it adjusts the ration So it's high in fiber content low in grain content. So you don't have any that they just upset going on Feed bunks are great. You can feed them from the outside of the pin You don't have to fight with calves But they now have to learn how to eat out of a feed bunk If you've got good cattle that don't put their head through a fence line through a fence out on pasture You've done well, but feed bunks are such that cattle have to stick their head through a fence So the different deal once you get your head through the fence you might be the temptation to keep on crawling and Once you get calves crawled out of a fence line feed bunk you find out separating them may not be so easy putting them back Yeah, especially if you've got 30 head out of a thousand Cows out running around the calves get back with the cows That's no small chore to have that be done So one of the options we have is to put feed bunks in the pin where the calves are at And feed a totally mixed ration in the pan The other option we have is to have hay feeders like hay rings with round bales put into them So calves have had a backless the same type of hay that they have been eating And then put a tmr in a bunk either on the fence line feed bunk or out on the side But then at some point you're going to have to teach the calves that the hay ring is not the ration The ration is what's in the is what's in the feed bunk and that's what they need to have Water location is an issue can be I always remember the point of in some of our other livestock species that they may have never seen an automatic water So just the hissing of water is a scary activity Sometimes in order to get through it, they might have to create a stream of water through the pen Just get the calves to drink just get animals to drink Well calves aren't that stupid they usually figure out where it is And it might be placed in the fence line or in the middle of the pen Please note though if it's in the fence line Cavs on the other side of the fence that might have any snotty noses or whatever Could share that with the calves that are drinking all the same water on this side of the fence So wild security might be one of those issues you may have to deal with So ration changes are an important thing We need to adapt cattle slowly did I say slowly to adapt them very slow You're going to increase the average daily gain in the ration or of a calf You need to increase the energy content of the ration that you usually do that with grain Grain is loaded with starch and if we provide too much starch at one time that can lead to acidosis Bloat death it can turn into a bad deal We try to avoid that and it's a management issue because you provided too much starch at one time We need to slowly adapt the cattle So if you're going to feed grain and you're going to bunk feed like like this picture down below Provide with only half a pound half a percent of body weight of grain for the gas So you've got a five weight calf that's only two and a half pounds of grain And then increase the grain a pound every two to three days is cattle adapt or you might take five days It's running on how well cattle adapt and adapting isn't just cattle consuming Adapting is them coming up the feed bunk and eating as well part of those calves could Um out of a pen of 150 might come up the feed bunk and eat and the other 50 you're still wandering around wondering What's in the feed bunk? Well, those first 50 might eat five pounds of feed rather than two and a half five should not be a problem But we certainly don't want to give them 10 pounds of grain that would lead to too much grain overload and Yeah, again the calves aren't coming up the feed bunks certainly don't increase the grain and the ration And the amount of grain delivered to the cattle we need everybody to come up to eat Think about ration preparedness sometimes calves might get sick and antibiotics are a reasonable approach to Help a large group of calves. It's only a small group of calves are sick individual treatment. It's always a great idea But if we need to treat the whole pen This will require a veterinary feed directive from your veterinarian that you have Experience that has experience with your herd and you Um, they'll need you'll need to have a bfd Be taking the feed supplier in order to purchase antibiotics. We're going to mix them with the feed And that's just a given now You have to follow label directions for the feed or the prescription that's provided or the I should call the veterinary feed directive That's provided by the veterinarian Please note though that this does not apply to the anaphors your rinse and ovovatec or coxidio stats like gourd or decoct refers to things like oxytetracycline or chlorotetracycline or pulmatil or those types of feed Type antibiotics that can be provided by a veterinarian prescription or the veterinary feed directive Here's a parting thought for you as you're putting calves on feed after weaning. Look at the manure manure can give you a good idea how the calves are consuming and how they're performing You definitely don't want to have diarrhea if you see that going on you've either got a very laxative type hay Or that's moving right through a highly digestible Or you're feeding too much grain or one calf is eating too much of one thing and not enough of the other And um, all that avoids room and upset. So acidosis highly fermentable hay even moldy feeds can lead to manure issues that aren't What i'd like to see also avoid hard manure. So if you're walking out in the pen you stumble over a manure clod You probably have some issues going on there in the type of feed you're giving your calves low quality hay might be Appropriates of calves don't over consume But they certainly need to have something better than that and the ration needs to be improved Of course, usually if they have water problems cattle could drinking water and you should You might either waters froze up or you know, there's issues with the water but still A lack of water can happen and looking at the manure in the hardness might be one way to think about it So my goal in looking at the manure when you're out there walking through the pans looking down at your feet Trying not to step in it. Please note that I like to see manure consistently similar to pancake batter But if that didn't ruin your appetite for pancakes for the day Just think about when you're out looking at calves and the manure that's in the pan that it's consistent If you see things of blood or mucus discharge, you might want to encourage a veterinarian to come visit Coward because there might be other issues going on at the same time So again, you want all the patties to look the same if you see one or two scours out there That tells me you've got one or two calves that are in distress And more attention needs to provide for them. So some issues here for Weaning calves and placing calves on feed to consider with that. I'll uh end for the day and continue on. Thank you Thank you Carl We'll now open it up to questions if anyone has questions. Um, Yuri had to jump off early to make it to another meeting, um, but Dr. Sucka and Carl are both here to answer any questions that you may have I'm just a reminder that all of the webinars in this series were have been recorded and are available on our website I put that link in the chat box. It's the NDSU extension website and then go under the livestock management tab and on the topics page there is A button or link to the page with all the recordings for for this series One last call if there's any questions All right, well, thank you for attending and If you do have any questions be sure to contact your county agent or one of our specialists. Thanks again