It’s that time of year again – separating the babies from their mums to wean them. Weaning can be stressful for all involved – mums, cria and us! However, we usually don’t wean until the last cria born is 6 months old – and generally the cria are already eating from troughs (even if only nibbling) and helping themselves to hay.
We wean the babies at the same time as weighing them and giving a dose of vitamin and mineral drench. It could be argued that we should do the weighing and dosing at a separate time, to reduce the stress on the day of weaning – but we argue that it is a single afternoon of stress – and gets it all over and done with in one go.
Being born in late April Dottie and Dolly were older than we would usually wean the cria and we had not seen them suckling for a long time. Despite this, and weighing in at a whopping 52 kg, Dolly has been the most unsettled.
All babies are eating well and the mums appear to not be in the least bit phased by the separation!