“If weaning is well-managed, that short-term stress can be as little as a week or two. And then those animals are performing well and are healthy again. If it’s managed poorly, it can take a long time and we can have a lot of sickness and have a lot of need for veterinary care,” Olson said.

In the worst cases, weaning troubles can cause permanent impairment of performance, he said.

All the changes that calves must adapt to at weaning - especially “leaving mom” - combine to make it a stressful event, Olson said.

“There’s more than one thing going on, but the whole social aspect of it is important. They’ve been dependent upon their moms and all of the sudden we take that away,” he said.

Another aspect is the change in environment. In the pasture with cows, calves grazed and suckled milk.

“All of the sudden we put them in a pen with harvested feed in a feed bunk that doesn’t look like food compared to what they’ve seen so far in their life. They’ve got to learn to eat that kind of feedstuffs under those conditions. So life is turned completely upside down,” Olson said.

Source: .livestockroundup.net