If I were to seperate our calf from its mother would the cow or the calf Try to brake out to be near each other, If they were able to see each other. Thanks David

-- David (Middleman65@hotmail.com), April 13, 2002

Answers

Yes they will, and the calf will bellow for a few days. How old is the calf and why do you need to seperate them?

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), April 13, 2002.

Yes and the mom will call for a few days too. It is a noisy time around here when it is time to separate out the calves! We move the moms over to a pasture far away from the current calf crop. LQ

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), April 13, 2002.

It is called weaning where I come from. Imagine 2000 calves crying and and 1995 cows bellowing...warms the heart and yes I can sleep nicely through it.

If they can see each other and nose each other it will go quieter but you need a good electric fence between them. This assumes calves are in the 6 months plus age range.

There will be fewer problems if you put the calves at one corner of your place and the cows at the other. (hopefully a couple of miles apart) At a reasonable weaning age, the calves will be more persistent in blowing fences to find mom than the other way around. Mom will suffer some, but she will also figure out that it is time for junior to be onher own sooner than junior will figure it out.

If you are dealing with loners then more problems are likely...if yo have one cow and one calf, separating them is not just a family issue but a herd issue. If you wean 2000 calves they have each other for moral support and heard leadership dynamics. The herd of cows have each other. If you separate mom and baby and they were a herd of 2, well then you havew the family desire and the herdi desire working against you. If this is the case, get more cows...i always wondewr why the ASPCA does not bitch about too few members in a herd but they do about other humanly contrived things like lack of barns etc.

Good luck.

Oscar

-- Oscar Will (owill@mail.whittier.edu), April 13, 2002.

Another thing to remember is if you put the calf back in with the cow too soon, they will often go back to nursing. Some cows will allow this, some won't ... but I've had to wean a milk cow's calf more than once because of this.

-- SFM in KY (sportpony@yahoo.com), April 14, 2002.