Page 11 - Oct12020

The Midwest Cattleman · October 1, 2020 · P11
Weaning – Improving Outcomes

Through Decreasing Stress

By Katie VanValin, Assistant Extension Professor, University of Kentucky
The classic definition of how to eat out of a feed bunk.
stress according to Hans Selye They are also expected to eat a
is, “the non-specific response diet that is likely new to them
of the body to any demand for and may contain ingredients
change”. Dr. Selye was an en- they’ve never seen before.
docrinologist by training and is That was stressful writing all
largely regarded as the grand- continued on page 18
father of the study of stress. By
any definition though, I think
it’s probably safe to say that
2020 has been a stressful year.
We saw cattle markets take
a wild ride and grocery store
shelves empty out of meat
and toilet paper in response
to COVID-19. That initial re-
sponse to COVID-19 that saw
bare shelves and low cattle
prices is a great example of a
stress response. Now here we
are months later, and we’ve
adapted to some of that initial
stress. While things are cer-
tainly not normal, we know
now that we will be able to go
to the store and get the things
we need when we need them.
This scenario is not that dif-
ferent than how cattle respond
and adapt to stress events. I
would argue that the single
most stressful period in a beef
animals’ life is weaning. Up to
this point that calf has relied
on its dam for almost every-
thing. Now its weaning time,
and no matter what we do this
is going to be a stressful period,
we can’t control that. However,
we can control how stressful
this period will be.
It is important to get in the
mindset that weaning is a peri-
od of time, rather than a single
day. We could get the herd up,
sort off the calves, load them
onto the trailer and take them
to the sale barn, and call them
weaned. In this scenario calves
arrive at the sale barn bawl-
ing, and they may be co-min-
gled with calves from other
farms. They eventually work
their way through the auction
system and arrive at a feedlot
somewhere west of here, in a
process that can take several
days. Along the way they may
come into contact with novel
pathogens, that can cause ill-
ness. Then once they get to the
feedlot they may have to learn
to drink out of a waterer and