I can't imagine putting hundreds of pairs in the corral, sorting calves off, running them down the chute, tagging them with random numbers, then spending the rest of the summer trying to write down which calf number belongs to which cow.
On top of all that I don't know of any operations that have their cattle anywhere near a set of corrals by the time calves are 300 lbs.
This might work for folks that have a handful of cows down in a small area all summer, but if the number of cows is small why tag calves at all?
We do it all the time with pastures that hold 150-250 head, each. It's not a numbers game. They get matched up right away as they come out the chute, not later.
No one tags calves at birth here or any where around here except for seed stock people or maybe a little hobby farm so they can name them at the same time. It's actually the opposite. Small guys with pretty wide open pastures and pet cows are more likely to tag at birth. Most of the cows generally have calves in the brush and you don't see even them for several weeks. If they do bring them out the odds of catching one are slim to none between the brush and the Brahman influence cattle. Our cattle will ball up, make a V and charge what ever is making that calf beller like some national geographic deal where a Lion is trying to eat a Water Buffalo baby.
All the cattle have to get gathered and worked before weaning if you are going to tag and cut them. Even if people hold calves past weaning, they are likely getting loaded and sent to another property for that.
A good friend of mine runs almost 1000 momma cows buy himself. There is no one riding cows every morning to see who calved. He brings in a crew to gather and work them, with him, when ever he needs cattle worked. You will see him putting around place to place with his old Ford, no tailgate, and bed full of salt and mineral blocks, a cube feeder, maybe a ground feed feeder in the winter. No horses, fancy tractors, no one permanently on the pay roll.
As an example one place is about 15K acres. It has 5, roughly 3K pastures. It also has couple hundred acre catch trap one one side of the pens and a 100ac lane/ hold trap one the other with assorted lanes and traps to work cattle through and bring cattle in to that facility. You clean out one pasture bring them through the pens, work them, match them up, push them back to a pasture. Go to the next one. There are usually not cattle in every pasture so they can rotate or rest if need be.
If you don't have a set up like those people just rotate accordingly to make sure the cattle end up in a pasture adjoining facilities that time of year.
I am well aware some of yall can't do that. The last couple posters have not said they are in the same position as yall. Like I said in the previous one, I'm just asking if it's necessary because I understand it is not necessary for very one to do. It's an expensive and potentially dangerous task if it's not absolutely necessary.
This is all very interesting. Up until a couple days ago I had always thought I was the "calf catcher".
