The weaning box shown at the lower portion of the scientific screen provides important information about the age at weaning for calves in the simulation. There are three lines in the box. The first line reports the actual age at weaning, in this case, 64 days. The second line reports the recommended age at which the calves are ready to be weaned. This number is based on a cumulative intake of non-fiber-carbohydrate, or NFC.

In this example, calves consume a total of 15 kilos of cumulative NFC intake by Day 66, and then they are ready to be weighed. The final line reports the age at which calves are ready to be weaned based on industry recommendations. Many dairy professionals recommend weaning when calves reach some threshold of intake, for a certain number of days. In this example, the recommended weaning age occurs when calves consume 1Kg of calf starter for two days In a row, and this occurs on day 51.

We can change the recommendation by going to the farm and calf menu and moving to the standard weaning option. Here we can change the quantity needed for the calf to consume and the number of days to set our threshold. When we change either of these values, the age at recommended weaning will recalculate.

Like every box on the scientific screen, left click will copy the data in the table to the clipboard and allow you to paste it to other applications. If you right click, you’ll copy a picture of the box to the clipboard that can be used in presentations. Well, that will do it for this video. Feel free to visit other parts of the GPS knowledge base to learn more about using the program.