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October 2017 Articles

Just Rambling October 2017 :
Spiritual Corner October 2017 :
For retired AgCenter agent, visit to LSU campus is a wish come true
LSU AgCenter researchers developing environmentally friendlier drilling fluids
• Weaning Strategies Can Reduce Stress in Calve
Listening session held on new farm bill
Enjoy fall wildflowers
Producers hear about heifer diets, bull quality at field day
Farm Bureau, Livestock Groups Request Waiver for Logging Device Mandate
Farmers, Ranchers Ready for Long-overdue Immigration Reform
American Farm Bureau Encouraged by Tax Framework, but Refinement Needed
AFBF to EPA: Time to Rescind WOTUS Rule
It’s time to plant fall vegetables
USDA Designates Natural Disaster Areas
Superspeedway Taco Pie
OPPORTUNITY TO APPLY FOR THE ENVIRONMENT QUALITY INCENTIVES PROGRAM IS HERE
Acadiana cattle field day set for Oct. 21

(17 articles found)

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Weaning Strategies Can Reduce Stress in Calve

Weaning Strategies Can Reduce Stress in Calves — Weaning is a critical management practice for several reasons, including breeding efficiency, feed utilization, marketing and calf performance during backgrounding and feedlot phase. How-ever, it is an extremely stressful time for the cow-calf pair, especially the young calf. Stressors may include: 1) Nutritional: diet change, low feed intake, dehydration; 2) Social: dam-calf bond, anxiety, security; 3) Environmental: mud, dust, rain, heat; 4) Physical: castration, dehorning, bawling, standing, hauling. Weaning can also be stressful for the owner of the animals, especially if weaned calves are placed in a pen near a person’s bedroom window!!! As animal managers, we should try to make weaning as stress-free as we can, while keeping productivity and profitability in line with our goals. Before weaning, and depending on the production goals of the ranch, there are a few issues that you need to resolve. These include: vaccination program, pen(s) with little or no mud or dust and enough room for all calves, appropriate fencing, good quality pasture and/or hay, supplement availability and delivery method. The traditional weaning practice of remote separation can be replaced by alternate weaning strategies, which may decrease calf stress by terminating suckling before remote separation. Two-stage weaning. In this case, a nose-flap (or nose-clip) is placed in the calf’s nose for several days before weaning. This prevents the calf from nursing but allows her/him to graze and drink water while staying in the same pasture with the dam. At weaning, the flap is removed. It can be washed and reused. Fence-line weaning. With this practice, calves are physically separated from their dams and placed in an adjacent paddock so that visual and auditory contact can be maintained while suckling is prevented. We conducted several grazing experiments (we did not wean in pens or dry-lots) with these techniques by placing the nose-clip or fence-line weaning calves a week (7 days) before the day of “normal” weaning (day 0). For the purpose of this article “normal” and “abrupt” weaning is the same and refers to the day/time of complete separation of dam and calf so that they can’t see each other, and if possible, we should make sure they can’t listen to each other. In all experiments we also kept a group of calves that remained with their dams and were abruptly weaned on day 0. Our research showed that, on average of 3 experiments, calves that went through the two-stage or fence-line weaning did not gain as much weight (0.3 and 0.5 lb/day) in the week prior to weaning when compared to those calves that remained normally with their dams (0.7 lb/d) and were abruptly weaned. In the first 3 days of the treatments (7, 6, and 5 days before weaning), calves that were fence-line weaned took 25% more steps than the other 2 groups. This is a normal behavior since they were pacing, “looking for a way” to get close to their dams; however, after these 3 days they walked similar number of steps than the other groups. During the 7 days before weaning, calves that had the nose-clips grazed 11% less time than those fence-lined and 24% less time than those on the “normal” weaning group. This reflects that calves with nose-clips needed a period of adjustment, mainly because they spend a lot of time trying to nurse. During the same period of time, fence-lined calves and normally weaned calves spent the same amount of time grazing. All groups of calves were followed until the end of their stocker phase (after winter grazing), and there was no effect of weaning method on animal performance during this phase.
We took blood samples from all calves and evaluated different blood metabolites to determine the effect of these weaning strategies. Even though there were differences in the time dedicated to graze and number of steps taken, calves that were fence-lined or two-stage weaned had similar concentration of blood urea nitrogen (BUN), non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), and creatine kinase (CK) than normally weaned calves. Greater concentration of BUN and NEFA may have indicated that calves were in a negative energy balance. Greater concentration of CK indicates muscle breakdown due to extreme exercise (walking, running). For 7 days after weaning we followed calves’ behavior and performance. Those that were fence-lined or nose-clipped before weaning gained more weight (0.9 and 0.75 lb/d, respectively) than those abruptly weaned (0.15 lb/d). Also, the abruptly weaned group walked nearly 8, 7, and 7.5 miles more (on day 1, 2 and 3 after weaning), bawled (number of vocalizations per minute) five times more, and grazed 40% less time than the fence-lined and two-stage weaned groups. As expected, values of BUN and NEFA were greater in “normally” weaned calves indicating reduced dry matter intake, negative energy balance and hence mobilization of body fat (this is the reason why NEFA were high) to cover energy requirements. Similarly, “normally” weaned calves had greater CK in blood due to the greater time spent walking. These results show that fence-line and two-stage weaning may reduce stress and animal welfare. Final considerations for fence-line weaning: 1. Fences should be good enough to keep cows and calves separated since they will always try to get back together; an offset with electric wire is recommended on both sides of a permanent fence with 4 or 5 strands of high tensile or barbed wire. If you are planning to use just electric fence and your cattle are used to it, you would need to have at least 3 strands of wire and they must remain “hot” for several days. 2. Even though it is not a “must do” it will help calves if you place them in a pasture that they are used to so that they will know where the water trough, mineral feeder, and shade(s) are located. For this, place the cow-calf pairs in this pasture for an entire week before you fence-line wean them. 3. If calves are placed in a new pasture, placing a calm older cow (with no calf) with the calves may have some benefit in calming calves and helping them find feed and water. 4 Manage pastures so that calves have the best quality pasture possible. Otherwise, good quality hay & feed might be needed. Final considerations for two-stage weaning: 1. Calves must be with flaps or nose-clips for at least 4 days, although an entire week is preferred. 2. Bringing the herd to the chute “just” to place the nose-clips may seem too much work. Use this opportunity to do some-thing else like vaccinating calves. 3. Nose-clips may fall off; in our experiments we had a 94% retention rate. Needless to say, if a calf “loses” the clip the practice would not work on the cow-calf pair. 4. After the nose-clips are removed they can be washed and use again the following year. If you plan to purchase nose-clips, they are around $1-2 each. Guillermo Scaglia, Professor—Ruminant Nutrition & Forage Systems, LSU AgCenter Iberia Research Station

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