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Effects of Early Weaning on Forage Disappearance and Performance of Spring-Born Calves

Researchers at the Universities of North Dakota State (NDSU), South Dakota State (SDSU), and Wyoming (UW) collaborated in a 3-year study to evaluate the effects of weaning calves 75 days earlier than normal on subsequent performance. Early-weaned (EW) calves were weaned in mid-August, and Normal-weaned (NW) calves were weaned in early-November. Following is a brief summary of results of the first year of the study.

  1. Native range disappearance tended to be reduced when calves were early weaned.
  2. EW calves gained faster and more efficiently during a 7-8 week backgrounding phase. Nevertheless, NW calves were still heavier at the end of the backgrounding phase.
  3. Early weaning resulted in improvements in cow body wt. and condition.
  4. NW calves were heavier than EW calves at the end of the 7-8 week backgrounding phase.
  5. NW calves were 170 lb heavier at arrival to the finishing year than EW calves; however, final harvest wt. did not differ.
  6. NW calves required 61 fewer days on feed.
The authors concluded that early weaning can result in sparing a significant amount of forage and that it is advantageous to cow body condition score. They also noted that early weaned calves performed adequately during the post-weaning period (Landblom et al. 2005. South Dakota Beef Report).

[April 4th, 2006]


Dr. Rick Rasby, Professor of Animal Science
Animal Science, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Lincoln, NE

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