taking baby from mama

majic99 · #1 03/19/12, 04:23 AM

How and when do you seperate baby from mama?
dairy cow

happydog · #2 03/19/12, 07:22 AM

I've found it's best to do it early. In the beginning I wanted to do things "the natural way" and leave them together, but it never worked for me. Mama learns real fast how to hold up the cream for baby. And then there's the whole rodeo of separating them at milking time.

After I few cows I stopped anthropomorphising (sp?) them quite so much, lol. They aren't wringing their hands because someone's stolen their baby. I've found the sooner you separate, the easier it is on everybody. I see why dairies separate immediately. It's just easier all around. Even for the cow.

We use electric fencing so I have to put the baby in a stall. Newborn calves are not very coordinated and don't comprehend electric for the first week or two.

Mama might bawl a bit the first day but then it's out of sight out of mind. Then when I bring the baby out a few days later she's like "Oh, where'd that come from?" lol.

For weaning I've found it's really easy to separate by simply putting them in adjacent pastures. They can still see each other over the fence and Mama can lick him, but he can't nurse. They're both perfectly content with that arrangement. After a few days they sort of forget about each other and just go about the business of being a cow.

Karen in Alabam · #3 03/19/12, 07:34 AM

My Judi Mae is 2 months old now and she never comes in the milk barn--I haven't been able to touch her yet--I haven't worked too hard at it.

Sissy follows me in the barn and Judi Mae goes off and does her own thing with Ricky Bobby. The two of them are always off together doing something--both very independent.

I get enough milk for me and then some. I am still giving a partial bottle to Bones who is 8 months old--only because I have the milk.

myersfarm · #4 03/19/12, 08:33 AM

I think the answer is WHAT THE COW WILL DO.......share milking works great for lots of people or leaving the calf up all the time and letting suck when you milk works or if the cow holds up pulling calf.......but what also works for you needs to be put in there also

linn · #5 03/19/12, 08:34 AM

I usually separate the cow and calf when she starts holding back her milk. This varies from cow-to-cow.

BeeDaisyRabbit · #6 04/02/12, 07:54 PM

What is your objective? To milk 2x daily, OAD (Once A Day), or drying off the cow?

If you must separate a milk share situation (calf with cow) because of drying off the cow for her next calving, then you have two options: move the calf to another farm or have a very secure paddock (good, high fencing-no old rusty wire) where the cow and calf cannot "reunite".

If it is just as simple as keeping the calf form taking your milk share, then just trick the calf or cow into a separate paddock or field (grain works well). We have a calving field (connected to the milking parlor field) that serves to separate cow from calves at night so that the OAD (morning) milking can be done.

Miss Kay · #7 04/02/12, 08:00 PM

We take ours away soon as they are born. Mom doesn't seem to realize she had a baby and baby thinks we are mom so they are both happy. We move the calf to a stall by itself until it is big enough to go on pasture. We do not put it in same pasture as mom until it is nearly a year old but I'm sure you could do it sooner since the calf has never nursed a cow. The calf is super tame but raised on real raw milk and the mom never holds up or misbehaves.

Cindy in KY · #8 04/04/12, 05:43 AM

We left them together, Jersey Girl is such a good mom. We milked twice a day for several weeks. Then we locked the calf up at night in a stall next to his mom so we would have enough milk in the mornings, and they got turned out together after milking. Then after a bit, we did not need to milk in the evening anymore since the calf had it all day.

We are still getting 2.5 gallons every morning, and this is plenty for us. The calf is 4 months old, and huge. I can't believe how big he is. We never had any problems what so ever, he learned the stall was his and he sleeps like a baby in it.

When they come in, they get their treats.

They both go out together in the big pasture after milking now, and the calf runs a lot up and down the hills which has given him some big muscles. Jersey just grazes, she doesn't follow him around. This is working really good for us, we did not want to have the calf alone and in a smaller pasture.

Cliff · #9 04/04/12, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cindy in KY

We left them together, Jersey Girl is such a good mom. We milked twice a day for several weeks. Then we locked the calf up at night in a stall next to his mom so we would have enough milk in the mornings, and they got turned out together after milking. Then after a bit, we did not need to milk in the evening anymore since the calf had it all day.

We are still getting 2.5 gallons every morning, and this is plenty for us. The calf is 4 months old, and huge. I can't believe how big he is. We never had any problems what so ever, he learned the stall was his and he sleeps like a baby in it.

When they come in, they get their treats.

They both go out together in the big pasture after milking now, and the calf runs a lot up and down the hills which has given him some big muscles. Jersey just grazes, she doesn't follow him around. This is working really good for us, we did not want to have the calf alone and in a smaller pasture.

We've done basically the same thing for about the last 10 years. Some cows will hold back during milking, you can tell if they are doing that because there will be very little fat in the milk. The fatty hindmilk is the last to come out. Letting the calf out to nurse one quarter while you milk the other 3 solves the holding back problem.

Yeah the calves grow so much bigger and faster when they are left on the mom, it's amazing the difference between how they do and how the bottle babies do.

I guess my answer to the op's question is we don't separate the baby - never had the need for gallons and gallons of milk and bottle feeding sucks. Nothing against doing it but I am lazy. It just always seemed like creating a whole lot of work for no reason to me. It's a whole lot of work milking twice a day, handling the multiple gallons of milk jerseys tend to make, trying to figure out what to do with all that milk, and then bottle feeding? No thanks. Now if we ever needed huge amounts of milk for whatever reason we would do it. We just don't.

Another big reason that we don't separate mom and calf is that if you don't want to milk at all for a day or even for a few days you just leave the calf with mom at night. Problem solved.

sammyd · #10 04/04/12, 03:41 PM

we get em out of there as soon as they are dried off.