Aus - Allflex or Leader tags and animal welfare

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Greggy - someone already mentioned, but you might not have caught the gist of what they said.
PermaFlex eartags have a button they call Daisy buttons. They are shaped like a flower with pedals. Very soft, designed not to be snagged.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I have put Allflex or Permaflex Extra Large eartags in my newborns day they were born for nearly 50 years. I have a calf this year and may have had a total of ?? 2 others that have torn out their eartag as a calf. Cows ?? maybe two in the course of these 50 years. I only run around 50 momma cows, but I do not have a cow in the herd with a torn ear.
You might look at management - do you have strings hanging that can snag them? My cows are allowed in the woods/hedgerows all the time. They rub on EVERYTHING available.

 

[greggy]

Greggy - someone already mentioned, but you might not have caught the gist of what they said.
PermaFlex eartags have a button they call Daisy buttons. They are shaped like a flower with pedals. Very soft, designed not to be snagged.

Yes, saw it.

Can you believe that we have to use a certain button....it has ......do not remove.....written on it.......you can guess how well that works for people who do not care......sigh.

When someone breaks the law here....our politicians make more laws, the fact that criminals do not care about any law seems to escape them.

For our own tags, we can do anything, so was good info.

Re management, 1 was done on a fence, second maybe the same or when calves playing with each other, others no idea as tags found in random spots. But, I will concede they are in a small area, and all smaller calves, none with mum, and none that have been 300lb plus have ripped one out.

 

[regolith]

It's illegal to remove them but you can be sure any one in their right mind is going to cut them out if the ear is swelled up with infection...

I tagged my whole herd a year or so before the law was brought in because I was changing out the management tags anyway - blood everywhere, cows going crazy, taggers were repeatedly flicking the tags away as soon as they touched the ear (sometimes scratching them in the process... that's where the blood was coming from) the EID taggers are *not* designed for tagging adult animals. They work okay on nice soft baby calf ears.

 

[Redgully]

Greggy - someone already mentioned, but you might not have caught the gist of what they said.
PermaFlex eartags have a button they call Daisy buttons. They are shaped like a flower with pedals. Very soft, designed not to be snagged.

Yes, saw it.

Can you believe that we have to use a certain button....it has ......do not remove.....written on it.......you can guess how well that works for people who do not care......sigh.

When someone breaks the law here....our politicians make more laws, the fact that criminals do not care about any law seems to escape them.

This was equally an industry push and continues to be to protect our industry. We are on the front foot with disease control and these tags give us traceability which has cleaned up a lot of dodgy producers. It is not a perfect system but if you can think of something better I'd like to hear it.

 

[greggy]

Registered brandings perhaps ? Cant fall off, cant have dodgy the dodger cut and replace tags in 10 seconds.....

It is not bad, only when it becomes law, cause then only the lawless are free....so do not get me wrong, it is a move that in principle, and maybe even a lot of practice, is a good thing. It is legislating stuff that irks me.

Think of if I graze a few hrs 3 times each day next door, and the owners cant be bothered being registered, or maybe they are, so I am a law breaker if I do this....and am I really going to make multiple records daily of hundreds of different animals. Like there is nothing else to do.

Point being, some things are great in theory if you sit in an office on the public teat....this system does not stop mr dodgy, not one bit, I could shoot holes through this everywhere...

What it is good for, is greasing the wheels for a few companies, the govt, yards and agents or interested parties.

 

[greggy]

It's illegal to remove them but you can be sure any one in their right mind is going to cut them out if the ear is swelled up with infection...

I tagged my whole herd a year or so before the law was brought in because I was changing out the management tags anyway - blood everywhere, cows going crazy, taggers were repeatedly flicking the tags away as soon as they touched the ear (sometimes scratching them in the process... that's where the blood was coming from) the EID taggers are *not* designed for tagging adult animals. They work okay on nice soft baby calf ears.

Missed your post.

Yeah, that is also sort of what I was getting at, impractical rigid systems mean a lot of people just do whatever, I think medical would be a legit removal, but, I am not sure, and I am not going to know the legislation inside out, anyways.....I can see this would be what most would do.

So, prob better to get them in young, maybe even a button on unused ear, so you have a healed ear with a hole ready to be used later. You really would need a head bale with chin bar & be quick if a wild or barely contacted animal....but if you let go of applicator, the ear should not get damaged ?

Any opinion on what tag to use, I imagine you have the same 2 and a few other options like us ?

 

[regolith]

I only have allflex taggers, so that it what I use. We also have Leader and Zeetag brands available.

The spring on my brand-new green taggers was pretty loose which was why it wouldn't go through the tougher adult ears, it's designed for the pin to flip out and release the tag once the tag is through, it was springing back under pressure when the tag had already scratched or got half through the ear. I had to finish the job with a borrowed green taggers. We have to tag them young anyway by law but really the best option is a few days old, in full daylight and with the calf's head firmly controlled - seriously calving time is busy enough if you're rushing and doing it in the half-dark with the calf just lying resting there's a good chance of hitting the vein and making the ear flop or predisposing an infection. If I let a calf out to the paddock with a cow and try to catch him six weeks later to tag... might find I simply don't have the strength to hang on to him I've resorted to tagging those ones when the entire group is dehorned, our vets preference is to sedate to dehorn.
You need a head bail. If I have to replace a tag on a dairy animal I do it in the milking shed, have done bulls that way as well you really need luck on your side and a placid calm animal to get it done with the head unrestrained. The law came in with an 'impractical to tag' provision but they keep making the law tighter, apparently now you need official certification that a particular animal is too dangerous to tag and they can only leave the farm direct to slaughter (what actually happens is a lot more realistic but being sensible is going to end up with people being prosecuted and fined the way things are going).


The whole registration thing is still a nightmare six - eight years after it became law, I'm not finding it possible to meet the requirements perhaps because of my poor internet connection, perhaps because of technological problems on the part of government/tag supplier/information provider. The tags I'm using don't have the EID number written on them so the *only* way (unless you own a scanner) to get that number registered to that animal is to obtain a computer file from the tag supplier and upload it, for the last three consecutive years I've had problems obtaining and uploading that file in a timely manner. This year the files I obtained were blank, after several failed attempts to put the information into the system I had to contact the people I'd bought the tags through and get them to track down working files related to that tag purchase.
I don't know how they can expect the system to work when rural NZ still doesn't have realistic internet speeds and the average farmer is over 60 and often has minimal computer skills to start with. Phoning in information used to be an option but last I heard it's almost impossible to get through in the phone and can take weeks for a response if you ask for a callback.

 

[regolith]

I don't think the law makers/law enforcers have any real idea of the animal welfare implications of what they are doing.
For example, full tail docking was banned back in '06 with the *only* exception that the tail could be removed... by a vet... if it was injured.
In reality if I have a cow with a snapped tail bleeding out I put a rubber ring on as soon as I see it, I don't leave her bleeding while I make a phone call to the vet, I've seen snapped tails some 3 - 4 times over 25 years, it's getting to the point where if you have a docked cow for any reason you're going to have to hide her completely... I have one in the calf mob this year, was like that when I first saw her at a few hours old I think momma got a bit too enthusiastic about licking her clean. It really doesn't help when you've got respected vets insisting that tails never get injured in any way other by humans.

 

[mailm]

I'm using allflex NAIT tags... can lose up to 10% annually several with ears ripped. NZ government claims they don't come out and aren't interested in animal welfare. At least, I conclude that they aren't interested in animal welfare on the evidence that they insist on every calf being tagged full-time with these things even though farmers keep telling them they're shredding ears.
Two calves out of thirty born this spring have ripped ears, I know for a fact one did it on a bit of string hanging on a gate, because that's where I found the tag.

edit to add: my whole herd had tags scanned at TB testing nearly a year ago... that's a thing now. Just 5 tags found missing, ears not ripped but I think four of those cows would have been born 2009 - 2011. Which strongly suggests to me that those things have a half-life of not more than nine years. Previous time the herd was scanned was just two years after they were all first tagged, and we put in 10% new RFID tags as the originals had been lost.

It's very sad to read this and realize that the government is not interested in protecting animals. I've been wondering why so little attention and resources are attached to animal rights. I would like to see positive dynamics in the development of this, regardless of what kind of animal it is, what size and colour. I recently studied this issue and found a lot of information about animal rights on this source https://studydriver.com/animal-rights-essay/ Personally, I used to be very neutral about this, and just now I began to think about this issue.

 

[Aaron]

Better not tag them at all, or our resident socialist PETA poster girl will give you a serious tongue lashing for animal abuse.

 

[greggy]

Aaron, have you enquired on them if they provide options of placement of these tongue lickings? can they lick my boots ? Do they offer other options....ears no good as they are usually plugged

Well. They better get all our legislation wiped too....lol...they taking a tough stance pn that crowd here....

The irony is, there is so much of this legislation across different govt depts, I have now found an issue where some depts clash, one says you must do abc another says abc is illegal....lol...

We have so much of this, the people making it up cannot even keep up....and in say one dept...left hand does not know what right hand is doing let alone the feet, head etc....

It is literally them at times doing this... :deadhorse:

 

[greggy]

PS it is always funny to call a govt help line for assistance and the poor phone staff have no clue....funny till they decide to act I spose.....