Ear Tag Information

[Supa Dexta]

Next number in the sequence. Everything else is kept in the house.

Yeah I'm with you. I do different colours for steers and heifers but the only other catch is they need to be tagged daily. Doesnt matter if there's 2 dozen calves that day which came first, just tag em one by one, and at the end of the season I just need to know where the fell in the order of calving season, not who came first that day.

 

[talltimber]

Calf gets cow number and that's all. I keep a book in the truck to record birth dates under the cow record. When I get to keep some heifers I'll pick up where the cows numbers left off, or skip ahead a little and start there, renumbering the heifers.

I had a mess this time. It stayed so warm for so long that I didn't want to ear tag due to flies (already had the one with the maggot infestation). I studied the calves and took notes on subtle differences in the all black calves. The few that had a small amount of white on the belly somewhere was easy to ID. When we crowded them to tag we only mixed up three or four, but they are easy to tell a difference in now. I'll get them fixed during the 2nd round/cutting.

 

[cotton1]

We use one piece "calf" tags. Blue for the boy calfs, pink for the girl calfs. They are numbered in order behind the year letter. We also have a small enough herd to run numbers in order. When we get to 999 we will have to start over at 01. EX. if my last calf of 2012 was registration #15 for me, its tag would have Z15.On top of that the sires #, on bottom the dams #. So when I am in the pasture looking for a particular calf, the first thing is the tag color. Then the sire and dam #s help me be sure its the right one.Mostly this is handy when visitors are here looking at the herd. It can get confusing if you have multiple ET calfs by the same donor. I may be able to say well this calf goes with that cow, but its an ET on a recip. The sire and dam on the top and bottom remind me of the mating then. We keep all of our records on paper, and on computer spread sheet as well as the Association registery. So, last calf of 2012 may have been Z15, first calf of 2013 may have been A16 etc. If you use the letter system a while it will become second nature remembering the year that goes with the letter. 2016 letter is D by the way..

 

[dun]

One other thing we do is when we tattoo the heifers we retained. If it's commercial it just gets the individual ID in the ear, registered get the individual ID and the herd ID in the other ear.
For ear tags we put the tag in the left ear for heifers and right ear for bulls

 

[Cibster]

I put the calf's ID number which starts with the year they were born and then they get the first 3 digits of their dam's ID number. So a calf out of cow 8960 that is born in 2016 will be 6896. This way I can easily identify what year the calf was born and I can also easily know what cow that calf was out of. I know this method would give you trouble if you have a large number of cows, but it works well when I only have 50.
Also on the front of the tag is the sire, birth month and day, and percent. Then I also put the calf's number on the back of the tag too. Heifers get a purple tag and bulls get black. I may go to using different color tags for purebreds and Balancers in the future.

 

[Gators Rule]

I modified my ear tag protocol last year, and it seems to be faultless this time. FIRST is Year Letter of birth (D this year), then mother's number and her letter of birth. An example a heifer born to registered SimAngus cow "17X" this week. Heifer's tag is D17X. In three years, when she calves (assuming I keep her), her calf will be tagged with G17D.

I also use the Cattlemax program, and it seems to do anything I need it to do, and probably a lot more...

 

[Supa Dexta]

Problem with that eventually is the numbers get long. G17D's calf will be J17GD? then her first will be M17JGD?

 

[Boot Jack Bulls]

We use only their name on the tag with herd ID just above the name. The herd ID is the order they were born in and the year letter. So our sixth calf of this year will be 06D. They all are the same color ( white etched in black tags) and all go in left ear. We have everything on cattle Max and they all are tatooed, so any more information is not necessary. The only reason we use those tags at all is so our bull customers can remember which one they bought or leased from us. Our commercial herds are tagged with just the herd ID on it.

 

[dun]

We use only their name on the tag with herd ID just above the name. The herd ID is the order they were born in and the year letter. So our sixth calf of this year will be 06D. They all are the same color ( white etched in black tags) and all go in left ear. We have everything on cattle Max and they all are tatooed, so any more information is not necessary. The only reason we use those tags at all is so our bull customers can remember which one they bought or leased from us. Our commercial herds are tagged with just the herd ID on it.

That's pretty much the way we do it. Except we don;t put the name on it, registered names are too long. We use yellow tags, heifers in left bulls in right

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

We use Ritchie, and engrave our tags.

At the top, the year they were born
Right below, the AI sire (all calves are sired by AI or embryos, so same thing)
And below, at the bottom, and the biggest, the animal ID
On the back bottom: FSSR

Love our Ritchie tags!

Everyone that sorts our cattle love the sire name, because they can identify the Upgrades/Brokers/Built Right... etc cattle right off and not ask who the sire is of the calf.

 

[Gators Rule]

Problem with that eventually is the numbers get long. G17D's calf will be J17GD? then her first will be M17JGD?

Huh? In 3 years, G17D's calf will be J17G, and then her first will be M17J.

 

[Supa Dexta]

Gotcha. Not for me, but good luck with it. I've got too many animals for that many digits.