Ear Tag Numbering system

[aplusmnt]

Do many of you use a Letter on your tags to designate the year the cow was born? I was reading two different articles and one said I, O, V and Q are not used. But a different article included U and Z as not being used.

I know it is each persons preference as to how to do it but curious what is the most accepted industry standard for using Letters?

 

[3MR]

http://www.uaex.edu/Other_Areas/publica ... A-3002.pdf

 

[Frankie]

Do many of you use a Letter on your tags to designate the year the cow was born? I was reading two different articles and one said I, O, V and Q are not used. But a different article included U and Z as not being used.

I know it is each persons preference as to how to do it but curious what is the most accepted industry standard for using Letters?

We give each cow an ear tag number starting with the year of her birth. A cow born last year will be #6something. We try to make the second number the second digit of her dam's ear tag (Cow #35's calf born last year will be #65), but we've lost a lot of ear tags over the years and haven't always been able to make that work.
We also use numbers instead of letters for the year in our tattoos.

 

[3MR]

Frankie, what if you had a new calf this year from #653 and #554? They would both be #75_.

 

[Frankie]

Frankie, what if you had a new calf this year from #653 and #554? They would both be #75_.

We only use two digits. When we leased a big, rather remote pasture years ago, we ordered ear tags with our name and phone number on the back of them to put in cows that didn't have tags. We've tried to take them out of the cows as we sell them. But, as I said, we've lost some and some went with cows when we sold them, so we can't always make that work.

Cow #35 was born in 2003. Her daughter (assuming we keep her) born this year would be #75. Make sense?

 

[3MR]

But its still the same thing, Calfs from 35 and 25 would both be 75. I suppose if your saying the next number is the number of the calf born that year it would make sense, ie: 751 and 752. Is that what you are saying and I missunderstood, or am I still missing something?

 

[dun]

We use the first didgit being the international year designation letter, this year is T, and the sequential number that the calf was born in that year.

dun

 

[Workinonit Farm]

Where I work the cows tags first digit is the year of birth, followed by the order in which she was born. Both ears are tagged and one ear has an EID button. The calves tags have the year of birth, then below that the order in which they were tagged/born, on the rear of the tag the top number is the sire's number and the bottom number is the dams tag number.

A friend has the year of birth at the top on the tag and the month and order of birth below that (910 would be Sept. 10th) and on the back of the tag is the dam's tag number.

My cows tags numbers are in no particular order (except a few) and the calves tags are numbered in order of birth. All the rest of the info for each animal is recorded so all I need to do is bring up a tag number and voi-la, all the info on that animal is right there.

Katherine

 

[milesvb]

I do the same as dunn on the ear tags. On replacement heifers we brand the left hip with the last digit of the year under the individual animals number 1 thru 99. When I get to 99 I'll start over or figure out something else. I shouldn't have to worry about that for a couple years or so ;-) .

 

[Stepper]

Can you buy blank ear tags that you can put the letters and numbers on ? I was watching a rancher work cattle and when he would ear tag his animals he would use a red tag for bull calfs and green for heifer calfs. I thought that was a pretty good ideal. It is sometime hard to remember wether a cow had a bull or heifer and it is sometimes hard to get close enough to look and see what sex the calf is.

 

[dun]

Can you buy blank ear tags that you can put the letters and numbers on ? I was watching a rancher work cattle and when he would ear tag his animals he would use a red tag for bull calfs and green for heifer calfs. I thought that was a pretty good ideal. It is sometime hard to remember wether a cow had a bull or heifer and it is sometimes hard to get close enough to look and see what sex the calf is.

We tag heifers in the left ear and bulls in the right.

dun

 

[Bez>]

Cows work on tag numbers from 1 to 100.

Calves get a 10 (?) digit radio tag. If we keep them we fill in the blanks from missing numbers in the cow herd and add a plain old number tag with that missing number.

Ages are recorded in the computer.

Most calves go to the pasture in the sky via the feed lot.

No requirement for years on the tag in my opinion - we can always look up the age - seems we always forget the year code anyways.

Simple is best - and trust me - we are simple people!! 8)

Bez>

 

[south kentucky cattleman]

what ive been doing is keeping good records on my laptop ...doesnt really matter what number is on the cow but all the info about the cattle are on my laptop according to which number is on the ear tag

 

[Workinonit Farm]

We tag heifers in the left ear and bulls in the right.

dun

Same way I do it.

Where I work, its the opposite. Then the retained heifers get 2 tags, one for each ear.

Katherine

 

[Workinonit Farm]

Can you buy blank ear tags that you can put the letters and numbers on ?

Yes. Many sizes and colors.

Katherine

 

[aplusmnt]

We use the first didgit being the international year designation letter, this year is T, and the sequential number that the calf was born in that year.

dun

Do you use a U, V or Z?

 

[Caustic Burno]

Use blank tags cow is number with the next in the srquence, birth date, dam and sire data on the back.

 

[dun]

We use the first didgit being the international year designation letter, this year is T, and the sequential number that the calf was born in that year.

dun

Do you use a U, V or Z?

All letters are used except I, O, Q and V. Apparantly the international standard isn;t all that standard. In some tables it shows V being used and Z not being used, other tables show it the other way around. The Red Angus associaiton doesn;t use V but does use Z so that's the way we do it.
http://www.uaex.edu/Other_Areas/publica ... A-3002.pdf

dun

 

[Frankie]

But its still the same thing, Calfs from 35 and 25 would both be 75. I suppose if your saying the next number is the number of the calf born that year it would make sense, ie: 751 and 752. Is that what you are saying and I missunderstood, or am I still missing something?

You're right. Cow # 35 and 25's heifers would both be numbered #75 if we used this system and kept both heifers. But it's not often we have heifers from both two cows with similar numbers in the same year, or that we keep both heifers. We don't use a third number. We have had some cow families that we kept daughters and grand daughters until we just had to switch numbers. But generally it works for us.

 

[msscamp]

No, we never used the a year of birth indicator. Cows were tagged/tatooed according to their registration number. Calves were tagged with their mother's number. Birth dates were recorded in a small notebook, along with sex - Dad and I always had our notebooks with us. Calves that were registered/retained were retagged and tattooed after weaning - the rest didn't really matter as they were sold through the salebarn. Lost tags were a rare event but, when it happened, we generally knew who the animal in question was.

Forgot to add that bloodlines/father is designated by ear-marks.