With most calves in the Midwest born in late winter and spring, May and June are ideal times to start the process of preparing your calves for weaning this fall. 

If your bull calves were not castrated at birth, do it now. There are numerous advantages to castrating bull calves before 3 months of age compared to at or near weaning. Castration at any age is stressful, and the older the bull gets, the more stress on him. The meat is more tender from calves castrated early and has more marbling. Dr. Dan Thomson of “Doc Talk” said, “The longer the testicles are attached to the calf, the more the calf becomes attached to his testicles.”

The ads that tout “leave them bulls until weaning and capture the free testosterone effect” are only giving you half the story. A bull calf at weaning will weigh about 5# more than his steer mate that was castrated early, BUT the bull calf castrated at weaning loses weight for nearly two weeks after the surgery, while the calf castrated early keeps on gaining.

Want to capture that lost 5# and 16 more pounds? Use a suckling calf implant on all steers when they are castrated at 60-120 days of age. These growth implants that cost less than $2 will add 21# on average to your weaning weights. With 500# feeder steers projected to sell for $333/cwt. this fall, adding 21# of weaning weight will net you $44 (the price includes the price slide of $30/cwt of five weight steers). What a tremendous return on investment! Can you imagine going to the bank, handing the teller $2, and 90 days later getting $44?

On heifers, there is no benefit to implanting a heifer that you know is a keeper. If she is a “maybe” or she is destined for the feedlot, implant her as long as she is over 45 days of age.

There are many implant choices, so be sure to check with your herd health veterinarian to get a low-dose, suckling calf implant.

Now is an ideal time to get the first round of vaccinations into your young calves. This is another area where there are too many choices. You want to use a modified live vaccine that helps prevent Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) that your herd health veterinarian recommends. If your doctor has questions on this subject, please have them contact me.

Blackleg is a common disease in many parts of the Midwest, and the vaccines for this disease are very effective. Now is the time to vaccinate. There are also vaccines to help protect against pinkeye.

Who hates flies? If your cows could talk, they would be shouting, “I do. I do.” Fly control is a multi-faceted process. If you started feeding a fly control product in your mineral starting about April 15 in Central Indiana, good job. If not, I would still start it now. The insecticide in the mineral passes through the cow’s digestive system and ends up in the manure. Horn flies lay eggs in the manure, and the larvae die before they hatch. Call your feed supplier for recommendations.

Insecticide ear tags are helpful in providing a few months of fly control. You should tag all cows and calves – and don’t forget the bulls – for best results. It is ideal to rotate between pyrethroid, organophosphate and avermectin tags each year. Wait until an adult cow has about 200 horn flies on her – that number would fit on the palm of your hand – before tagging. Placing them too early will greatly shorten their effectiveness.

Be sure to cut them out in the fall and dispose of them so your dog cannot get into them.

I also recommend a pour-on for a quick knockdown of the flies. Do not use one of the pour-on dewormers as overuse of these can lead to parasite resistance. Use a pyrethroid product.

Speaking of dewormers, the current recommendation is to only deworm cows and bulls 4 years of age and under and/or those in Body Condition Score (BCS) 4 or lower on a 9-point scale. Cows develop some immunity to internal parasites as they mature, and those worms in your 6-year-old cow in BCS 5.5 that calves first cycle every year must not be too harmful. The “old” recommendation was “worms are bad; kill them all.” The problem is that nothing is 100 percent effective, and we have developed worms resistant to anthelmintics. Strategic deworming is the “new” way of thinking, and it makes a lot of sense.

Hold off on deworming your calves until weaning. They will have very few worms in their system at 60-120 days. By weaning time, they will have picked up a significant number of worms, and they will have developed almost no immunity to them. Treating all calves at weaning is recommended.

I have mentioned many different products in this article. Please contact your herd health veterinarian for recommendations. They know what products are the best fit for your area.