Sep 4, 2026 · 19 min · 8 segments
Weaning is stressful enough on calves and cows. The drought conditions can add other stresses to the process. Colorado State University Extension Veterinarian Dr. Kathy Whitman joins Extension…
Kathy WhitmanGuestScott StinnettHostWell, let's pivot just a little bit to, we talked about a few hazards, you know, going on, you know, flies being an environmental hazard that are going to be there, dust being an environmental hazard.
A lot of times this time of year, we haven't thought about our pins, but we go in there and we start to use them and If your pens look like my yard does, the thing you've got an abundance of is kochia and pigweeds, things that can carry some nitrates.
Maybe a few other plants that we don't want around our calves, depending on where you are.
So let's talk a little bit about poisonous plants and what we need to maybe watch for in our pens and maybe need to take care of before we start using those pens.
So anytime we have cattle pens or pens where we've had cattle concentrated before and we have high loads of fecal material that's been in there, the first thing that's going to grow in those environments when they haven't been walked on is going to be things like kochia weed and pigweed, those nitrate accumulators that can really cause problems.
And so one of my biggest recommendations is if we're ever going to put cattle in a pen, you know and i mentioned earlier you know can we get them in the night before if they're hungry or they have access to to forages like that then you run the risk of of having toxic issues and so if we if we can't avoid exposing them to those sorts of plants making sure they're not hungry when they're exposed to them is a good idea and better yet can we go ahead and run the tractor over that and just scrape scrape our working pins beforehand and then run a hose over them to kind of mitigate some of that dust.
But I do think it's really important to identify those risk areas and where we're going to be housing animals and how long we're going to be keeping them there while we're working them.
know if they have those exposures they're cows and they're gonna they're gonna get after things that they shouldn't and um and kosher for some of them is really delicious and so we can we can end up with in a bad situation uh particularly if they're hungry when they go in
right sometimes when nothing's been green for the past three months all of a sudden a little bit of green kosher a little bit of green pigweed tops just pretty good
Well, let's pivot just a little bit to, we talked about a few hazards, you know, going on, you know, flies being an environmental hazard that are going to be there, dust being an environmental hazard.
A lot of times this time of year, we haven't thought about our pins, but we go in there and we start to use them and If your pens look like my yard does, the thing you've got an abundance of is kochia and pigweeds, things that can carry some nitrates.
Maybe a few other plants that we don't want around our calves, depending on where you are.
So let's talk a little bit about poisonous plants and what we need to maybe watch for in our pens and maybe need to take care of before we start using those pens.
So anytime we have cattle pens or pens where we've had cattle concentrated before and we have high loads of fecal material that's been in there, the first thing that's going to grow in those environments when they haven't been walked on is going to be things like kochia weed and pigweed, those nitrate accumulators that can really cause problems.
And so one of my biggest recommendations is if we're ever going to put cattle in a pen, you know and i mentioned earlier you know can we get them in the night before if they're hungry or they have access to to forages like that then you run the risk of of having toxic issues and so if we if we can't avoid exposing them to those sorts of plants making sure they're not hungry when they're exposed to them is a good idea and better yet can we go ahead and run the tractor over that and just scrape scrape our working pins beforehand and then run a hose over them to kind of mitigate some of that dust.
But I do think it's really important to identify those risk areas and where we're going to be housing animals and how long we're going to be keeping them there while we're working them.
know if they have those exposures they're cows and they're gonna they're gonna get after things that they shouldn't and um and kosher for some of them is really delicious and so we can we can end up with in a bad situation uh particularly if they're hungry when they go in
right sometimes when nothing's been green for the past three months all of a sudden a little bit of green kosher a little bit of green pigweed tops just pretty good
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