Weaning?

When do you'all wean your calves? About how much feed do you start them out on? What boosters do everybody give there calves before they sell?

Do you have Spring or Fall calves?  I usually wean my calves somewhat early myself.  Anywhere from four to six months of age depending on the condition of the cow and the performance of the calf.

I let the calf come to the feed bunk on it's on first.  For some calves they are very young but usually on feed consistently by 2-3 months of age.  For sure I make sure the calf is on feed for 3 weeks prior to weaning, but that's just me.

I have fall calves.

I have spring calves and I usually wean about 5 to 6 months of age, most of mine are born in March and I like to have them weaned at the end of August. I have a creep feeder out from the time the calves are born and are usually eating creep and hay really well when weaned. At weaning, I start them with a creep grain mixture then going more grain as they get older and on all grain by time they sell.

We mostly fall calve, and I am a huge proponent of early weaning.  Depending on feed costs for the cows, I shoot for weaning calves at 120 days old.  The higher the feed costs, the earlier I wean them.  We have gotten along great with calves as young as 90 days old.  That being said, all the calves are well introduced to eating grain before they are weaned.  Calves are exposed to our grain mixture as soon as they will eat it while on the cow, and this is the same grain mixture we use after weaning, so there are no issues with changing feed.  Calves are also given free choice hay along with their grain.

For vaccines, we give Alpha 7 at birth, and then follow-up with 7-way, Viri-shield, Presponse, and wormer at weaning.

depends on the calf for us. We try to get tem up eating feed as soon as possible. We have found putting our potential show calves in the barn during the day and feeding them and keeping them in all day then turning them out of an evening to nurse all night works really well if you have the time to do it. For our calves we sell as feeders we typically wean them at about 5-6 months

normally, the creep gets put out from when the oldest calf is a month old, until the youngest calf is weaned.  historically, we also wean as close to 5 months of age, but yet the whole group, or most of the group at once, so some are younger, and some are older.  This holds true for calves born all year long.

This fall, I did something different.  It was the first year we did not creep anything, and I had one youngster that I weaned at 3 months of age.  no creep, and I pulled him from the cow and put with the big calves on a self feeder.  Here we are about a month later, and he's finally starting to come on pretty good.  It was my experiment, and for the most part, I'd say it was a success...

With that said, will I be weaning all my calves from now on at 3 months, no- but I won't hesitate on the occasional calf that's born at an odd enough time to be a pain if left on the cow.