ear tags

[CattleAnnie]

Because we run in a community pasture, all our cattle must bear the same colour of ear tag. Honey's herd is yellow right ear, mine are orange right ear. This keeps the individual herds easy to identify within each section of the management units.

The system we use for identifying individual animals is:
Year of purchase first number. Following digit(s) denote when added to herd.
Eg. #121 - bought 2001, number 21 purchased up to the point of tagging.

Calves receive the same ear tag number as cow. Keeps it simple when you're checking the herd. Eg. cow 121 is bawling, look for calf 121...not 14F, 3, etc. Don't need any paperwork on you to keep track of who's who.

Heifers or bulls raised and retained for use in the herd are double tagged (we have mandatory id tagging here in Canada, all stock must have a CCIA barcode before leaving your premises -soon to be radio button so this will help - so cannot legally remove the tag once in place and being that I pick my replacements in the fall means that the calf needs an additional tag..no biggie) with the alphabet letter of the birth year. Eg. Heifer 121 is a good one, so in the fall she gets processed and an additional tag of P1 (if she's the first one through the chute...otherwise it would be P2, P3, etc.).

Then obviously when P1 calves, her calf will be tagged P1 and carry that number till fall, where she may also carry tag (if a she and a worthwhile she at that) R1 or R35.

Hmmm... I think I just made our simple system look really difficult. Oh well, what ever cranks your tractor, eh?

Take care.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

what do you do after that if both the original dam and her calf are retained and both have a calf the next year? if i have a 433J and a 433L and they both have a calf this year, how would you tag their calves?

First, all our cattle have to be tattooed using the year letter code & our own numbers. I use the tattoo the same as the eartag, so they must have a permanent tag at birth.
I never use 3 digit numbers, stricktly 1-99 + year letter. Than when cow 29H, & daughter 29L calve, the original cow's calf gets 29R, & the daughter's calf is L29R. I feel cow families are the most important thing in our breeding program, so I like to keep track of cow families. When I see L29R, I know that is out of 29L.
When we have visitors, they can walk thru our herd & see our cow families.
Now, as the years progress, if you have a strong cow family it can get tricky. You could have L29P & M29P as replacement heifers, and next year they sould both be P29S under this system. So, I drop the 2 & the M29P cow will have MP9S, so all 9 cow family offspring are a distant relative of the 29 cow family. Can make you get pretty creative, but like I said it's important to me, so I work with it. Probably 1/2 to 1/3 my herd is in the 29 cow family.