Natural weaning

Wednesday, August 24, 2022  I was surprised to catch Ruthie grabbing an afternoon snack of milk from her mama yesterday. Did it bother me? Not at all. Ruthie is just over a year old and certainly doesn’t need that milk any more and Aspen has a very good body score (as in plump) so if it works for them why would I interfere? If Aspen was pregnant (she’s not) she probably would have weaned her completely by now.  Weaning is a process, not an event around here. All the babies born here are naturally weaned by their moms.  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. 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 when that mom has other babies, 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. Our #1 rule here is always no stress, so this type of weaning fits us best. Happy Wednesday!

Photo of the Day:  One year old Ruthie grabs a snack from her mama.  Aspen’s look says “mind ya own business”!