Natural Weaning

Wednesday March 4, 2020. Since our babies from last year are coming up to what some consider weaning age, I think that weaning might be a good topic for today. People often ask how long we let these older babies stay with their moms. Weaning is a process, not an event around here. All the babies from last year are being naturally weaned by their moms. Some of them grab a snack one in a while and that’s OK with the moms and everyone else here. The process is so gradual that sometimes it’s hard to notice, and how lovely is that? In the early days, when I listened to the “experts”, the rule was to wean at 6 months.  (All four boys are just over 6 months) We had crying babies in one pasture, sad mamas in another and I thought I was doing the right thing. No more! I do monitor the body score of all the mamas to be sure none get underweight, but they’re all fine and it sure takes the stress out of the weaning process to let the mamas do it. We’ve found that little girls who are force weaned from their moms will continually try to steal milk from any other babies that mom has, because it was not the mom’s decision to wean her. But when mom says “no more milk”, she remembers! The moms who have been rebred will wean their babies sooner. The ones who are not pregnant like to hang on to motherhood for a little bit longer and we’re just fine with that.The little boys will all be moved to their new home with the bachelors after shearing day so it will all be easy peasy 🙂 Our #1 rule here is always no stress, so this type of weaning fits us best.

Photo of the day:  Rocky gets a milk snack from his mom Marcella even though most times lately she has been refusing him.