Cool-season grass growth this spring was unusual. In a typical spring, one would expect fescue pastures to head out at 24 to 30 inches in height and have about 100 pounds of digestible matter to the inch. One would expect April grass to test in the high teens for protein and mid 20s for fiber. By the end of June, the grass typically has half that protein content and twice the fiber.

This spring something seems to have gone wrong; plants headed out at 1 foot, with little leaf, reducing both quantity and quality of forage "on the stump." My agronomy pals have been most helpful in explaining to me why this happened. They say the situation was due mostly to cool weather. Precipitation that should have arrived in the spring showed up in late fall. It spurred inadequate nitrogen uptake. Some plant stress can improve forage quality. Severe plant stress tends to compensate by reduced yields.

Fundamentally, if forage supply is short, the supply needs to be increased by feeding hay, or the demand needs to be reduced by culling animals or reducing the demand via early weaning or feeding cows supplement.

While culling animals might be the easiest approach, early weaning  calves may be the least painful approach. Compared to conventional weaning at 7 to 10 months, early weaning of calves offers a couple of benefits: 1) Calf performance and carcass quality improves while reducing forage needs; 2) Early weaning can improve cow body condition and reproductive efficiency.

Improving carcass quality is a big deal; the large spread between Choice and Select indicates that we could use more higher-grading carcasses. If we are grass short, reducing the forage demand is imperative; the nutrient composition of forage more closely follows cow requirements than the requirements of growing calves.

What is "early weaning?"

Well, it seems to be accepted that early weaning is anything earlier than the 205 day mark. Common places in the life cycle where calves are moved off the cow are:

When should early weaning be considered?

- When forage supplies are low; during drought, weather stress (cloudy, cool) and with poor stand-persistence.

Work in the Midwest has shown that if a producer weans calves prior to the breeding season, cow reproduction is improved by 10 to 15 percent, and the cows are half to a full body condition score heavier. This was recently confirmed in the literature with a study out of Kentucky by Schultz, et al. (2005. J Animal Science 83:478-485). Getting this magnitude of improvement requires calves to be weaned at 2 to 3 months of age. Now, before everybody calls for me to be burned at the stake as a heretic, I would submit:

Holstein heifers are often weaned off milk/milk replacer at 3 to 4 weeks of age.

I have successfully weaned Holstein bull calves as early as 2 weeks of ageÑthe caveat being that it was not what I wanted to do, nor a practice I recommend.

Weaning is much easier and less stressful if calves are creep fed. Likewise, carcass grade improves with increasing amounts of creep feed consumed. Length of time that calves are creep fed seems to influence quality grade. To pick up improvements in quality grade due to creep feeding, you need creep feed for at least 3 months.

Calves should be creep fed for at least 80 days. If you are early weaning the calves, you can wean just prior to breeding to get reproductive benefits for the cow and performance and carcass benefits for the calf. If you wean after breeding, you still get performance and carcass benefit for the calf. Calves need to be on a creep ration as early as possible to initiate marbling deposition.

The creep ration should be MFA Cattle Charge, although MFA Beef Creep is acceptable. Creep fed, early weaned calves will be much heavier at 205 days of age than their conventionally weaned counterparts. Creep fed, early weaned calves have higher ADG than calves nursing cows on fescue. Often you will see early weaned, creep fed calves 100 to 200 pounds heavier at 205 days of age than their non-fed counterparts.