Testimonials
Piet van der Linde
With the NoseRings I don’t even know I am weaning, so easy and laid-back everything goes. I keep the weanlings with their mothers for about a week before I take them away without too much weaning shock. Ideally, I then keep the bull calves separate from the heifer calves. The type of season will determine exactly how long I keep the bull calves, but the aim is to keep them until August, when there are very few other calves in the market. This is when the prices are usually significantly higher than in April or May, when most calves are in the market.
Piet van der Linde of Tweefontein in the Vryburg area
Owen Taute
During good seasons I sell my bull calves directly from their mothers at around 8 months of age and keep about 90% of my heifers. These heifers I wean in the cow herd with NoseRings. This reduces my management considerably, as I don’t have to provide for a separate herd. When, however, it is a difficult year and I want to wean early to help the cows, I wean the whole lot but keep them in the herd for a good 6 weeks. Only then I take the bull calves away.
Owen Taute of the farm Grysrand in the Vryburg area
JD van der Vyver
If you want to, for example, wean a first calver’s calf a little earlier to give the mother a bit of a break, you just apply a NoseRing and leave the calf with its mother. In addition, the NoseRing gives you the flexibility to further wean selectively according to birth date. Over a calving season of three months, there is a huge difference between the first calves and the last ones. The NoseRing makes it possible for the last calves to also reach the ideal weaning weight.
My experience is that you don’t have any weight loss during weaning with the NoseRing on the one hand, and on the other, that you have the flexibility to increase your profits in some years by not having to sell your calves when the market is flooded by other sellers. I am very excited about the NoseRing.
JD van der Vyver farms on Brandwag in the Vryburg district.
Dr. Dieter Nischk BVSc – Kokstad Veterinary Clinic
During the traditional separation techniques of weaning, the weaners are locked up or weaned across a fence. The weaners bellow and run up and down the fences, as do their mothers. This process takes up to five days to complete. During this period the weaners lose weight as do their mothers – an estimated 30 to 40 kgs weight loss in the mothers and a 20 to 25 kg loss in the weaners. If this process happens during inclement weather, I have losses of weaners due to pasteurella pneumonia due to stress. The NoseRings®, if used correctly, are definitely far superior to the nose-plate method and in my opinion are in no way cruel or stressful. Beef farmers have reported back that they were very pleased with their results and confirmed my findings.
Dr. FA Malan BVSc – Vryburg Dierehospitaal
Dr. Karl Aadnesgaard BVSc – Zululand Veterinary Hospital, Empangeni
Early weaning while green grass is still available was made possible through NoseRing®usage, staggering the groups of calves to be weaned. The companionship/guidance of the mother no doubt also played a role in avoidance of lantana and made the predicted difference to weight maintenance through winter. While a single year’s use is not enough for categorical statements, we were certainly encouraged and will definitely be using them next year. As a veterinarian, if I thought they were in the slightest bit inhumane, I wouldn’t use them. On the contrary, I recommend them unreservedly to my clients.
Dr. MG Vosser BVSc – Stella
Trish Oglesby, TOJO Ranching – Kwazulu Natal
