In order to make the most of the time and money invested in breeding your herd, you must carefully plan your weaning strategy. This will help reduce health issues, minimise weight loss and ensure your weanlings are in healthy condition when sold or housed.

The first step is to identify a weaning date. If you are selling your weanlings, you must decide what market to target. Most farmers selling weanlings will target some of them at a special show and sale.

Find out when these special sales are being held and work back accordingly. When the Suckler Cow Welfare Scheme was in place, the minimum period for weaning in advance of the sale was two weeks. This could, however, be doubled to give your animal the best chance to present itself well in the ring.

If you intend to keep your weanlings over the winter, it is equally important to decide when to wean. Ideally this should tie in with your autumn grassland management plan.

There is little point in keeping calves that are over 280kg suckling cows when weather conditions become difficult in the autumn. Grass utilisation will be improved by removing cows from the grazing block and grazing remaining covers out with light weanlings. To achieve this on heavy farms the aim should be to have most calves weaned by late September/early October.

Depending on the calving interval on your farm, weaning dates will vary. Farms with a tight calving interval may have one or two weaning dates. If the calving interval is spread, this may increase to five to six dates. These dates should go into your diary as everything from meal feeding to dosing will be dependent on them.

All too often farmers wait until the weather breaks before starting to wean. Where possible, weaning should be carried out when the weather is dry and fine. Minimise stress post-weaning also; avoid having to mix stock immediately after weaning, especially young bulls.

Herd health

The value of minimising stress levels during weaning cannot be emphasised enough. Timely implementation of a herd health plan plays a key role in this.

The lungs are the organs most under attack during weaning, so it is crucial that they are in a healthy condition beforehand. Dosing a few days before you wean is not a solution. When an animal is wormed it must discharge the dead worms from the lungs by coughing them up and then swallowing them into the stomach before they are passed out in the dung. When a calf with a heavy worm burden is dosed, the coughing up of these worms can cause long-term damage to the lungs and leave an animal more susceptible to pneumonia during high-stress periods such as weaning. Therefore, you should implement a summer dosing programme that ensures a heavy worm burden is not allowed to build up at any stage.

Advice on dosing will largely depend on how calves have been treated over the first part of the grazing season. For farm-specific advice, you should consult your vet. In most cases, all spring-born calves should have received at least one worm dose at this stage. If this is not the case, a worm treatment should be administered right away. Advice on when to administer the second dose will also depend on dosing history and projected weaning date. A spring-born calf should generally receive a mid-summer dose with an Ivermectin-based product followed by a second treatment two to three weeks before weaning.

Calves that will not be weaned until late in the season will possibly require three treatments. However, where housing is taking place immediately after weaning, the pre-weaning dose will eliminate the need for further treatment at housing. Other products with active ingredients such moxidectin, dormactin and eprinomectin are also available. Consult your vet for the best product and dosing strategy for your livestock.

The cost of treating calves for worms twice during the grazing season will be about €2 to €5 per head, depending on the product used and course of administration.

Vaccination

It is good management practice to vaccinate calves for clostridial diseases such as blackleg. Choice of vaccine depends on risk profile i.e. if there is a farm history of clostridial disease. There are products on the market that protect against just blackleg while others, such as Tribovax 10 and Covexin 10, protect against 10 different types of clostridial diseases.

Irrespective of the product you use, full immunity requires a two-shot programme with a booster shot administered four weeks after the primary shot. Calves over three months of age should be vaccinated. Costs of full cover will be in the region of €2.50 to €3 per head depending on the level of cover. Remember blackleg is a great judge of stock – it always picks out the best calf in the field.

While the stress of weaning does make it easier for pneumonia to take hold, an outbreak can often be caused by a combination of factors such as the weather, herd health, shed ventilation or poor weaning practices. In most cases pneumonia will not be a problem in a healthy animal weaned from its mother in the correct fashion.

However, vaccination will give you added insurance that your calves have healthy lungs. Vaccines such as Rispoval RS + PI3 Intranasal, Rispoval 3 or Bovipast RSP should be considered where you have high-value stock destined for the live export market. The cost will be no more than 2- 3 kg of body weight.

If you decide to vaccinate your calves, it is important to start the process in time. The final booster shot needs to be given two to three weeks before weaning to ensure full immunity. With the vaccination programme taking six weeks, animals you intend to wean in late September will need to receive the first course in early August.

Read the storage instructions carefully when purchasing vaccines. They must be stored at the correct temperature and most of them have to be used within 8-10 hours of the seal being broken.

Creep grazing

Weakening the bond between the cow and calf before weaning is one of the key steps to reducing stress. Allowing the calves to graze ahead of the cows for three to four weeks before weaning is a good option. It will also improve the performance of the calves as they will be offered top-quality grass up to the point of weaning. Where grass supplies are tight due to dry conditions, creep feeding can help tighten up the cows while slowing down the rotation.

One method is to install a creep gate between paddocks –similar in design to the front gate on your creep feeder. Other farmers simply raise the electric fence and allow calves to move in under the wire. This works well when calves are small but is not as effective with older calves.

If you plan to insert a creep gate, make sure the vertical bars are adequately spaced to allow calves pass through easily without getting stuck at the hips. Introducing an autumn weanling into the group or putting a cull cow in the field next to where you want the calves to graze will encourage them to use the creep gate.

Feeding meal

Creep grazing also allows you to feed meal to stock in a controlled fashion as opposed to feeding ad-lib meals through a creep feeder. This is useful for heifers or where calves are being retained on the farm and there is little benefit from ad-lib meal feeding. However, if you are targeting the live export market, offering ad lib meals six to eight weeks before weaning is an option where bulls are being sold after weaning. Six- to seven-month-old bulls will eat 3-4kg per day when offered ad-lib. This is 120kg to 160kg per head over a six- to eight-week period. Assuming a 5:1 conversion rate, weaning weight would increase by 25-35kg. As the quality of animal reduces, the economics of offering above 1-2kg per day is questionable. Only the bulls that will deliver should be offered ad-lib.

Holding calves out on grass for as long as possible after weaning will help them get over the stress of weaning before being faced with the stress of housing or going to the mart. Standing in a corner of a bare field does not constitute keeping weanlings out on grass. You must plan ahead to ensure you have an adequate supply of good quality grass for at least three to four weeks post-weaning. Feeding 1kg of meal per day while at grass is also advisable. Not only will it help maintain performance, but it is a great tool in helping to identify any sick animals.