I’m not sure why people are so upset about farmers weaning animals. For those of you who don’t know what weaning is, it’s when you take the babies away from their mothers. It is done for many reasons. A.) It is good for the mom. It allows her to regain her strength, body fat, and feed the baby inside her stomach. Many animals that have their young on them for awhile begin to look rough and thin. Even if they don’t have a baby inside of them. Any mom out there knows that a baby is a lot of work and wear you thin. B.) It allows the baby to grow up and become able to live a life without their mother. C.) The baby becomes stronger, more ‘mature’, and grows at a rapid rate.
Isn’t it funny how people judge livestock farmers for weaning their animals. If they only knew that, well, their cat and dog were weaned too. Your precious pets have been weaned too. How dare you take them away from their mother. That wasn’t very nice. HA. Welcome to the world of criticism and ‘calling the kettle black’ of farming.
If you really think about it, people are weaned too. It’s called going to college and moving out of the house. It’s called making your own money and being on your own. That is truly what weaning is about.
With animals it’s the same thing. It’s just time for them to grow up. Yes they cry when they are taken away, but so did I when left for college. It’s a fact of life.
While weaning my calves today I realized that I don’t LIKE taking them away, but I have to. Just as a mother doesn’t like sending her child to college. I at least get to watch over these babies and make sure they make ‘good decisions’. 🙂 They are now my adopted babies and I get to watch them grow and mature. I get to help them when they’re sick. Just like a person with a cat or dog gets to do. Yes we’re not actually their real parent, but we’ll be substitutes.
People just need to put their lives into perspective before they start judging us. They would realize that they aren’t so different than the rest of us. They actually do the same things we do. We all do it for the better of the animals.
Comments (5)
Really? Against weaning? I have never heard of people against it. It has been my experience that the cows will wean the calves themselves at a certain point, kicking them away when they try to nurse. Usually around the same age as the ranchers “force” wean. Actually the worst part of weaning is the first two days of cows bawling for the babies and vice versa. After two days it’s like they never even cared…. (We would make sure we put the cows in a pasture far away from the house so we didn’t have to listen to them for those two day lol)
Yea people feel that taking the babies away from the mother is cruel and unnecessary. They believe that they should be able to just run free with their mother and live their lives together. I know it sounds weird, but some people do believe this.
Uh… wonder how they would feel about the fact that I raised 4-H steers, loved them, tamed them, named them, groomed them, slept on them, used them as poker tables at the fair, and then sold them for slaughter (granted some years there were tears) for money for college….. yah, I’m that’s cruel.
where the heck do they think meat comes from? oh right… the grocery store.
Well… I do have to admit, I am a farmer, and I can’t stand doing it. Like, I really really can’t stand it. It almost makes me tear up, which is silly, but it’s just sad that they cry and want their momma back.
I don’t think that animals should already be pregnant when their kids are being weaned, that’s quite a tug on the body. Like having a human be pregnant when their last baby is only 10 months old. Kinda crazy!
That said, most animals do need to be weaned at some point. I have also had mother/daughter pairs that stay together forever – that’s great too if circumstances turn out that way. It’s just hard to judge because everyone has an opinion.
I have 5 dogs and 7 cats, I have 3 goats and many, many, other animals. All of them (except for the little babies) were obviously weaned at some point. Now they are great animals and have most likely forgot about their moms completely. It’s normal for an animal to go off on its own at some point. It just makes me sad when it happens!
[…] Weaning time. Where babies leave their mommas. It’s not as bad as it seems. Think of it like this–Kids leave to their homes to go to college and grow. Calves leave their mommas to grow. Read one of my older blogs to learn more about weaning! http://kellieforag.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/weaning-what-you-didnt-think-of/ […]
Comments are closed.