Unit 8 - Weaning Management Flashcards
What is the focus?
Maintaining health of and stimulating intake by highly stressed beef calves
When does weaning management occur?
During a 1-60 day period that commonly begins at anywhere from 30-270 days of calf age
What are the key activities?
1) vaccination against respiratory, clostridial, and possibly other pathogens
2) training to eat from a bunk and drink from an automatic watering device
3) adaptions to high energy diets
4) managing calf stress
5) treating stress related illness
What are the major functions?
1) support health
2) promote transition to a dry grain based diet
3) minimize stress
What month does weaning begin for spring calving herd?
October
What month does weaning begins for fall calving herd?
April
Definition of weaning
1) Beef producers definition: the permanent physical separation of dam from calf (an event in time)
2) Textbook definition: a process to accustom the young of a mammal to take nourishment other than by suckling ( process that occurs over time)
How are 50% of beef calves in the U.S. weaned?
Separation of calves from cows followed by immediate transport and sale
What kind of stressors are present during weaning?
1) maternal seperation
2) processing
3) diet change
4) transport
5) environment change
How is morbidity, mortality, health cost, and growth performance affected by weaning?
Morbidity increases 5-35 fold
Mortality increases 5 fold
Health costs increases 10-100 fold
Growth performance decreases 10-50%
What are the 5 elements of weaning management?
1) preparation for weaning begins well before weaning
2) vaccination against common pathogens
3) training to eat dry feed from bunks and drink from automatic watering devices that are located parallel to fence lines
4) abrupt elimination of milk from the diet, gradual increase in the amount of forage consumed and introduction of nov feedstuffs
5) sufficient time to allow adaptations to be completed
What are 5 goals of sound weaning management?
1) minimized and compartmentalized transition stress
2) Excellent DMI within 7-10 days of maternal separation
3) improved animal health following shipping
4) improved growth during finishing
5) maximum carcass value at harvest
What is arguably the most important aspect of weaning management?
Overcoming the reluctance to eat,
DMI
Stressed cattle are more likely to consume more energy from?
Concentrate based rather than roughage based diets
How to improve palatability to encourage DMI intake?
-moisture content 12-30%
-uniform particle size
-ingredient aggregation
When making diet changes what might affect selectivity?
-digestive disorders
-deficiencies
During bunk and water training what are some consideration made for diet adaptation?
-feed is offered at a predetermined percentage of body weight
-familiar feeds are blended with a complete, nutrient dense, concentrate based weaning diet for 7 days
-coupled with gradual removal of the long stemmed forage
During bunk and water training what are some consideration regarding water?
Clean and abundant water provided
Monitor at regular intervals throughout the day
Pay attention to the height of watering device for calves
Don’t expect calves to easily adapt to fence line watering devices
Water should be presented in a way that facilitates discovery and stimulate interest
What is the optimal length of the weaning period?
45-60 day recommendation
What is the abbreviation DART?
Objective criteria to evaluate for health.
Depression
Anorexia
Respiration Index
Temperature
Why can accurately diagnosing respiratory diseases in calves be challenging?
Calves can behave in a depressed manner or appear unhealthy and have no febrile response; treatment for bovine respiratory disease (BRD) should be objective and not arbitrary
What are the 4 steps to treat BRD?
1) calf appears depressed, anorexic, or appears to have some degree of respiratory distress
2) calf is pulled from its home pen and restrained
3) rectal temperature is measured
4) therapeutic antibiotics are applied only if DART criteria are met
How can weaning stress be altered by the manner in which maternal separation is achieved?
-familiar vs unfamiliar environment
-complete separation vs maternal contact
During familiar vs. unfamiliar environment maternal separation, what techniques can be used?
1) familiar pasture: cows removed, calves remain in home pasture
2) Unfamiliar pasture: calves removed, cows remain in home pasture
3) Drylot: calves removed to drylot environment, cows remain on pasture
During complete separation vs. maternal contact what techniques can be used?
1) traditional separation: cow and calf do not have visual or auditory contact
2) Fence-line weaning: cow and calf can see and hear one another
3) nose-ring weaning: cow and calf are together but suckling is prohibited
