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Growing Yearlings After Early Weaning

Movement from finishing light calves to a yearling perspective changes perspective on early weaning.

John Maddux of Maddux Cattle Co., Wauneta, Neb., has done a lot of early weaning and had to adjust the ranch’s yearling program.

“We eliminated all feeding from the cow end of it as we moved to May calving — letting the cows winter on cornstalks,” he explains. “With a May calf, however, we were under pressure to wean those calves by at least the first of October so we could get our cows onto cornstalks. We did that for a few years, since we had decent moisture and good grass, just weaning the calves in the fall at 140 to 150 days of age and trying to winter them on pasture with supplement to make yearlings by the next year,” says Maddux.

With this program the calves were weighing 350-400 pounds (lb.) at weaning, to go through the winter.

“We had gotten along extremely well with early weaning light calves we put in the feedlot, but our experience with early weaning and trying to have them on a roughage diet — even with lots of supplementation — was not as successful,” Maddux says. “It didn’t work as well as locking up the light calves and feeding a concentrate ration.”

It took longer for calves on the roughage diet to grow out.

“We realized those light calves didn’t have enough rumen function yet to take advantage of the rough feed — to run out on grass or cornstalks — even with plenty of distillers’ grains or cake. They were not ready to gain very well, especially if it was a tough winter,” he explains.

There was some compensatory gain on green grass the next spring, but the calves didn’t make up what they’d lost by not gaining well during winter.

“There is always some compensatory gain, but if calves could have been gaining 150 to 200 pounds they don’t make up that whole amount the next spring. Our goal is to try to have as big a steer as possible coming off grass as a yearling, hoping for a target weight between 900 and 950 pounds. If the calf is only 500 pounds when you turn him out on grass he will never weigh that much on time,” says Maddux.

Maddux prefers to have a steer approaching 700 lb. to go on grass the next spring, to get the maximum amount of weight when sold off grass that summer — before they get discounted. The price of cattle and cost of feed might occasionally alter this scenario.

“In general, most years have showed us it’s better to go for the heavier weight,” he observes. “The price spread between an 850- and a 950-pound yearling has not been much — only a modest discount. That extra 100 pounds per head on yearlings creates a lot of extra revenue for our operation if we can get them to weigh a little more.

“Our view is that it is almost always worth putting feed into them to get them bigger, because so much of the cost of carrying that calf through winter is not the feed cost,” he continues. “There are a lot of fixed costs. If we can spread fixed costs over more pounds, it lowers our cost of gain.”

The movement from finishing light calves to a yearling perspective has changed many ranchers’ views of early weaning.

“In our view, early weaning is not beneficial for calves running on pasture. They do better if the rumen is more developed by the time they are weaned,” he says. “If we are going to wean a calf early, we need to move him into a backgrounding environment so he can grow bigger before he goes to grass the next year — as opposed to having him running out on pasture with a supplement. It’s more expensive to do that.”

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Editor’s Note: Heather Smith Thomas is a freelance writer and cattlewoman from Salmon, Idaho.



 

 

 

 

 

 





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