Weaning Strategies in Beef Cattle to Reduce Stress

Weaning is considered one of the most stressful periods in the beef production system for beef calves. During this process calves are subjected to a variety of stressors including removal from their mothers, new diets, processing (vaccination, dehorning, castration etc.), and possibly even new pen or pasture environments. These stressors, singly or in combination, can result in behavior or physiological distress in calves (Lay et al., 1998) including increased vocalization (Siegford et al., 2007) and a suppression of the calves’ immune response (Lynch et al., 2010) leading to sickness. While the process of weaning is always stressful on the calf, a producer can utilize different weaning methods to possibly reduce the impact of weaning stress. Calf stress can be minimized by implementing strategies that incorporate slow changes in diet, separation and take advantage of environmental familiarity. This fact sheet will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of two commonly applied low-stress weaning methods.