Ear Tag 101

[Gators Rule]

Please allow me to pose a question regarding ear tags...

I have been using the system whereby a calf will be tagged with the momma's same number...with a letter prefix indicating the year of birth. That works ok, and is easy enough.....until that momma's own heifers start having calves of their own. Essentially, in the case of ole Red Beauty N09 over the past three years, she gave birth to heifers (cows) Z09, A09, and B09. Well...assume all have a calf next year. All four calves would be tagged D09 in my system. What do ya'll do to prevent this from happening in your ID recordkeeping?

thanks,

David

 

[dun]

Each calf is given a unique number based on the year and the number htat calf was born. First calf this year was C1, 14th calf was C14 etc. I have the dam and sire on a sepearte record so I know that I know C1 was out of A1 (just worked out that way and his AI sire is 79E, C2 is out of U3 AI sired by Sakic,C13 is out of Z5 NS sire Z1. I have lists of all that stuff both paper and on the computer plus I use Cattlesoft to keep all the records and can print reports if I need them.
On the registered calves we tattoo both ears, the animal ID and the herd ID, on the commercials we only take tattoo the animal ID. That's in case they lose a tag.

 

[Jbonnot03]

Probably not the best system, but this is how we do it as a commercial operation.

Calves each receive a number tag at working. They are then paired with their dam and recorded in CattleMax. If we keep the heifer, we will give her a number tag based on the year and just change the tag number in CattleMax. For example, the fall calves all received a blue calf tag numbers 1-??. The spring calves received a green calf tag. At weaning all the fall calves received a new number tag corresponding to the year starting around 540-??. We used to start with 501 for example, but still have some 05 models hanging tough. So at a quick glance, we can tell the year a cow was born. As far as matching calves, we have to go to the record book.

 

[VAAngus]

First calf of the year here gets a medium size tag with the first two numbers being the year, first calf born 1501, 2nd calve born 1502, 3rd calf born 1503 and so on. If we know the dam's number we will write it in small letters on the bottom of the tag, sires number on the back. Any replacements we keep get a new larger tag when we take yearling weights and their tag number also becomes their tattoo number. We know the age and tattoo number of any cow out in the pasture just by looking at the tag.

 

[Supa Dexta]

I dumbed it way down after fighting similar problems over the yrs. Cows just go 1- to whatever and calves just go 1- to whatever as they are born, with the year letter. 1c, 2c, 3c.. etc No comment on mothers number. And I use 2 different colours for bulls/heifers.

If I retain or add heifers they just get a new cow tag of whatever is next in line 125, 126, 127.. etc Then I have a spread sheet that keeps everything straight and who's who. But out in the field I seldom need more than just a number, so I can see 59 is getting bred, or calf 89c is limping.. etc. All those notes go in the spread sheet anyways. And nowadays I can pull up that spreadsheet on my phone from the home computer if I really need to look something up,

Older cows once they are shipped and say #10 is long gone and has no relatives, or even much info on her, a new animal can get #10, but only if there isn't much info to remember on the old cow for any reason. I've got a few old cows left I have no idea who they are, or how old as they lost their tags years ago.. So chances are a new animal can have that number again, as long as I reference any heifers to the proper #10

 

[gizmom]

We do the same as Dun this year we started with B1 through however many calves we have, prior to this year we used the year 1401 but we have reached a point that we were going to have 14100 and the boss (my hubby) tries (unsuccessfully some years) to freeze brand and the shorter the brand the better. I really like putting the year in front because I have a heck of a time remembering what year A or B is, but that is just me with my memory issues.

gizmom

 

[Nesikep]

A few people I know with larger herd put the mothers tag number on the calf, and cut it off every fall to reuse the following year, at which point the replacement heifers get their own number.

I'm small enough I remember which calf belongs to which mother, so every calf gets a unique number to start off with, and if I retain them I have it all written down, though I have it all memorized as well

 

[cow pollinater]

I use the last number of the year they were born as the last number of the tag and the rest of it has no correlation to the dam. For example, 103, 013, 223 were all born in 2013 and got tagged in the order that they came across the calf table. Since I work my calves in groups it makes it easy to tell how old my retained heifers are as higher number means younger heifer and there is no guessing about how old they are as they're either eleven or a yearling. It also keeps me from being biased to certain calves that I expect more from due to their dam.
You could do the same thing with a letter but I can never remember what the letter codes are when I'm looking at cows and I tend to want to think they're younger than they really are.

 

[highgrit]

I dumbed it way down after fighting similar problems over the yrs. Cows just go 1- to whatever and calves just go 1- to whatever as they are born, with the year letter. 1c, 2c, 3c.. etc No comment on mothers number. And I use 2 different colours for bulls/heifers.

If I retain or add heifers they just get a new cow tag of whatever is next in line 125, 126, 127.. etc Then I have a spread sheet that keeps everything straight and who's who. But out in the field I seldom need more than just a number, so I can see 59 is getting bred, or calf 89c is limping.. etc. All those notes go in the spread sheet anyways. And nowadays I can pull up that spreadsheet on my phone from the home computer if I really need to look something up,

Older cows once they are shipped and say #10 is long gone and has no relatives, or even much info on her, a new animal can get #10, but only if there isn't much info to remember on the old cow for any reason. I've got a few old cows left I have no idea who they are, or how old as they lost their tags years ago.. So chances are a new animal can have that number again, as long as I reference any heifers to the proper #10

We do it exactly the same way. I a believer in KISS.

 

[Nesikep]

I use names, but I'm running out of good ones, and my creativity is lacking.. hardly named any of the calves this year except a few that were from exceptional mothers or that had something unique about them... like "Buggy".. the bug-eyed steer

 

[Black and Good]

How I do it is all mature cows have misc#'s orange tag in left ear. Then each calf gets a tag when born, that matches mothers number with a letter behind it. Heifers orange tag left ear, bulls/steers yellow tag in right ear. For example: First calf heifer #19 has her first calf lets say its a heifer, gets orange tag in left ear #19-A. The next year lets say its a bull, yellow tag in right ear #19-B. Lets say fore mentioned #19-A has a calf will be tagged #19A-A with color and ear according the gender. Then sire & DOB is on the back. B&G

 

[creekdrive]

How we deal with that problem is we keep the mothers year letter on the tag as well. ie. cow R72 has a heifer that we kept that is XR72. She also had YR72. This year they both had calves as well that are CXR72 and CYR72. We usually put the current year letter at the top and then the dam/granddam on the left side of the tag. Purebred heifers also get their sire written on the bottom of the tag. Last year we started tagging the purebred bulls a little differently, just because when you have three 217's in the bull pen it gets a little hard for customers to keep it straight. So bulls get a number from the order they are born with the year letter behind. Then below that on the left we have the bulls name, and the cow's number on the right

here's a picture that kind of shows what I'm talking about in case I'm not making any sense.

on the left is a bull calf - 105C, his sire is Z376 and dam is X12. and then two heifers on the right, CTP94 & CX376

For some people I'm sure it's way to much information on one tag, but I like being able to tell all that information out in the pasture without even opening a record sheet.

 

[Gators Rule]

Wow! Great ideas. Thank you!! My prior method to using year letter and mommas number was every cow and calf got their own number with no letter. I started using the the year letter three years ago. I just now realized the glitch. Thanks again!

 

[Ohrmundt Simmentals]

We're pretty much the same as Creekdrive. Year letter from the dam and the one for the calf. Example a calf from this year was PC301. The dam is P301( she was purchased with that tag). Since we keep replacements we have 3 or 4 cows in production with the 301 number. If we have duplicates with 2 letters we add the 3rd letter from the granddam(something like PWC301). We do have a couple of families that we have quit a few replacements from so to make it easier I made a new numbered family. Just rearranged the numbers. So a 301 cow had a calf and is now starting a line of 103. The 103 calf is like 3 or 4 generations from the original P301. A little confusing but helps me tie all the cows and calves together. Their all get recorded in my program and reported to ASA anyways just in case I forget.

So many good ways to do it. What ever works for you.

 

[dun]

We keep it as simple as possible. We bought one cow that had her number, birthdate, sire and dam all on the tag and it was all in small letters to get everything on the tag.

 

[mrvictordomino]

I use this system, this calf 260 was born in 2012 and was the 60th calf. Dam was 725 and sire is 745. Four digits is max when we go over a hundred calves.

 

[Jabes0623]

Please allow me to pose a question regarding ear tags...

I have been using the system whereby a calf will be tagged with the momma's same number...with a letter prefix indicating the year of birth. That works ok, and is easy enough.....until that momma's own heifers start having calves of their own. Essentially, in the case of ole Red Beauty N09 over the past three years, she gave birth to heifers (cows) Z09, A09, and B09. Well...assume all have a calf next year. All four calves would be tagged D09 in my system. What do ya'll do to prevent this from happening in your ID recordkeeping?

thanks,

David

I didn't read all the way through this so someone else may have already suggested this...I use a very similar system to yours except I add the mothers year letter to the calfs #. So in your given example assuming all 3 daughters calve next year you would just go (I do Dam's year 1st but you could do it last with the same effect) Z09D, A09D, B09D. Obviously if all those calves are heifers & you retain them then you're going to run into some issues tagging their calves, but you could burn that bridge when you get there...Hope this helps

 

[Rafter S]

You probably have plenty of ideas by now, but here's how I do mine. For calves, I just use commercial pre-printed tags, and record which calf's tag goes with which cow. The calves that are sold keep these tags, and at the auction barn I have them record the tag numbers on the sheet where they write the back tag numbers. For heifers I keep, they get a new ear tag when I take them to the vet for their shots. The calves I weaned this year are numbers 015, 115, 215, etc. That way I know at a glance out in the pasture how old a cow is. And if I want to know her dam I pull out my phone and look it up.

 

[gizmom]

Really nice calf to go along with that tag mrvictor!

gizmom

 

[Bigfoot]

This is obviously another area that I am lax in. All heifers bought or kept born in 2015 will be in the 500 series. Make notes in my record book out of, and by. Heifers are kept largely on phenotype. I have noticed I keep several heifers out of my 600 series cows, as well as their offspring. I'd be just as likely to keep a heifer out of any cow in the field though, if it caught my eye.