The Great Wean-A-Rama of 2021
As I have covered before in this space, the infrastructure here on our farm means that the act of weaning crias from their dams here, when it finally does take place, is done in one move, with the youngsters leaving their dams’ side at the Arena and moving down and out of sight and ear shot to live at the CCNF Main Barn. The 6 month old crias are sad and traumatized for a few days — though they are not at all alone, cohabitating with those other youngsters from their original birth/feed group from the Arena, as well as those older juveniles that were weaned before them — but then quickly come to the realization that life without both their dams and milk is pretty fine just the same.
We have learned the hard way over the years though, that the initial stress those youngsters go through can sometimes be exacerbated in truly cold weather. Thus it was that with the position of the North American jet stream bringing a steady presence of arctic air into our region over much of the past month — even on bluebird sunny days, the midday temperatures had rarely broken above freezing, even here on our south-facing mountainside — we elected to hold off on weaning the group of 2020 crias that would have normally come down the hill around February 1st. Sad, mopey weanlings and 2 degrees Fahrenheit can quickly morph into a tricky situation: dehydration, diarrhea, respiratory issues – we’ve seen it all at one time or another.
Consequently, with another group of crias due to be weaned on 2/15 and with winter weather — but most importantly, decidedly less-bruising cold — expected to be in the mix over much of this week, the decision was made on Monday to wean the two cria groups (2/1 & 2/15) together: one huge gaggle of 20ish crias, or put another way – roughly 1/3rd of our entire 2020 birth class in a single swath: the great wean-a-rama of 2021!
Both the male and female weaner groups who live on the north (and thus predominantly windward) side of the Main Barn, were locked inside Monday night with a winter storm warning in effect for our area and high winds expected. As it turned out though, we were just far enough south to stay out of the big action, as we woke up yesterday to just a few inches of snow with the predominant sound being that of rain and sleet hitting the side of our house.
After checking to see that the surfaces out in the Main Barn’s paddocks were indeed safe to walk and run on (vs. a layer of slippery crust), our newly independent but still thumb-sucking fuzzy-wuzzy (not so) little parasites were all allowed outside to stretch their legs and check out their new surroundings by yesterday afternoon. The general tone of those weanling feed groups at the Main Barn will of course remain decidedly “stressy” for the next few days, while our new arrivals continue to acclimatize – but as ever there is strength, safety, and security in numbers which is what will ultimately come to rule the day. They too, will get by with a little help from their friends.
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