Last autumn I tuned in to a webinar by nutritionist Jane Vaughan in Australia and amongst much other useful information, she was suggesting weaning cria at 4 months of age. I have always weaned at 6 months of age, unless there was a specific reason for a cria to be separated from its mum earlier. At the time of the webinar my 21 cria were between 4 and 6 months of age. There was just one under 25kg, two between 25 – 33kg and the others all heavier, the heaviest being nearly 50kg at 5.5 months. The three smallest were all just over 4 months of age.

The cria were all used to entering a creep feeder and eating ‘hard feed’ consisting of GWF Hembre and Cria concentrate, dried flaked peas, young stock creep pellets and speedibeet. I kept daily weights as I weaned the cria, ready to return them to their mums if I felt concerned at the impact of such early weaning. The mothers were always within sight of the cria, in an adjacent pasture, neither mums or cria seemed stressed at the separation, with only two cria still grazing close to the fence line by day 3 of weaning.

I found that the three smallest cria all did better, in terms of growth rate, without their mums. The ones over 5 months had almost no slowing in growth. There were several at under 5 months who had a noticeable flat line for around a week at the start of the weaning period.

So, would I wean cria at 4 months again? For those cria where growth has slowed significantly, yes. For most cria I think I would wean at 5 months onwards if possible. Weaning the whole group together did seem to minimise the stress on them, so I would wait until I had a group that were ready to wean together.  The return to condition of some of the mums feeding greedy youngsters was very quick, and for already pregnant females this is probably good.

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