Numbering Convention for Tagging and Record Keeping

[Brute 23]

In the summer my cows maybe a couple of miles from the handling facilities. Very hard to replace tags as they lose them. So its not uncommon for them to lose tags a couple weeks/months apart but no opportunity to get retagged.

My hope is only a couple lose both tags a summer so I can figure out who's who.

Bro, you are killing me. I can't type every single thing with every single possibility for you. Some of that goes with out saying.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Bro, you are killing me. I can't type every single thing with every single possibility for you. Some of that goes with out saying.

You said cows "don't accidentally lose 2 tags". All I did was share that on many occasions I've had cows accidentally lose multiple tags.

 

[Brute 23]

F me.....

 

[SBMF 2015]

I'm leaning toward freeze branding.

A little cashy to get set up but once you get going it's pretty cost competitive

 

[gcreekrch]

A little cashy to get set up but once you get going it's pretty cost competitive

We brand calves at an average of 40 seconds per head through a table. Can't imagine the extra time to freeze brand.

 

[SBMF 2015]

We brand calves at an average of 40 seconds per head through a table. Can't imagine the extra time to freeze brand.

I just do the replacement hfrs and bulls. If we set up two chutes we can be clipping one in the back chute and branding in the front chute. Just over 2 minutes per animal.

 

[4hfarms]

I'm so unorganized.....

Last week I was poor...

WTF! Sick of all you over achievers.

 

[Hippie Rancher]

have never had a good system. sometimes we don't see an animal until it is weaned and 2 years old. mostly I just go with big blue allflex tags on the cows. way back when I was the "help" being able to have a few of my own on the place I used the alphabet A to Z, then AA, then AAA, then went to numbers. you can order up to 200 without a custom charge, went through those at some point and started adding a letter before then after. just a silly mess. tags got pricey so I was pulling them when we shipped a female to reuse, then that got to be a pain too. still doing some number with a letter after. steers get a small tag and never pulled for reuse. colors vary as the current 200 get used up. back to white in November, was red before.

inked tags seem to fade too fast out here so only tried that once. like the idea of the dremel ones but the more recent allflex seem to hold their print as long as the tag stays on.

we tag at branding and I do a photo at that time as well. sometimes I get the calves tag numbers all paired to their mothers. I have file cards, computer spreadsheets, notebooks, photos, and a ton of scraps of paper.

 

[RDFF]

Dang, where did that scrap with her notes go to?~!!! Slim, from over in the corner of the corral responds, "Remember when you had to "go", when we were branding the other day, and both you're shirt sleeves had already been torn off, and you'd lost that greasy shop rag a few days before?" Uh huh! Thought that'd jog your memory..." (refer to "Question for the Men, Man to Man post")

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Like most do, tag different color & different ear - RED tag heifers in left ear - YELLOW tag males in right ear - use international letter (N for 2025) My farm colors are red & yellow!
Cow families are extremely important to me (purebred herd). The cow pictured is Miss Lass - she was 12 in this picture. She was a #3 - I have half my herd are #3's. All offspring for generations - she was born 25 years ago.
I have gotten creative with my letters since after a couple of years, I had more #3's calving.
Example: 3K (born 2022) would have K3N this year. Letters in front can tell me the dam, and letter at end tells me year born - but 3 tells me the cow family.
My first year calving was letter E - I have used letter "E" 3 different years - been doing this a while like several others on this board.
I have a few #9's - that goes back to the first year we ever calved - commercial cows bred to Fullblood Simmental - numbered in order of birth.
And the international year letter does not use "I, O, Q & V"

 

[simme]

The cow pictured is Miss Lass - she was 12 in this picture. She was a #3 - I have half my herd are #3's. All offspring for generations - she was born 25 years ago.

Nice cow. B&B MISS POWER LASS K1. I know that you have posted some in the past about this cow, but I hope it is ok if I brag a little for you. She produced 64 calves. 28 males and 36 females. From many different sires. Some of those calves owned by billionaires, even. (Probably no billionaires on this forum, but rumor has it that my friend Jeanne's cow caught the eye of some billionaires. And she has friends in high places).

I hope I got the right info on that cow.

 

[GoWyo]

My calves all get tagged to match the cow because that's the only way to know whose is whose when I need to sort pairs. Calves all get a yellow calf tag in the right ear because I'm right handed and that's what works when I'm tagging them in the pasture, usually by myself. Never put numbers on a tag before I use it because it's bad luck and wastes a tag if the calf doesn't make it for some reason. I am kinda cheap and have been known to reuse calf tags the next year if I cut the tag off its sibling from prior years (bulls and replacement heifers when they get new tags).

 

[WFfarm]

Like most do, tag different color & different ear - RED tag heifers in left ear - YELLOW tag males in right ear - use international letter (N for 2025) My farm colors are red & yellow!
Cow families are extremely important to me (purebred herd). The cow pictured is Miss Lass - she was 12 in this picture. She was a #3 - I have half my herd are #3's. All offspring for generations - she was born 25 years ago.
I have gotten creative with my letters since after a couple of years, I had more #3's calving.
Example: 3K (born 2022) would have K3N this year. Letters in front can tell me the dam, and letter at end tells me year born - but 3 tells me the cow family.
My first year calving was letter E - I have used letter "E" 3 different years - been doing this a while like several others on this board.
I have a few #9's - that goes back to the first year we ever calved - commercial cows bred to Fullblood Simmental - numbered in order of birth.
And the international year letter does not use "I, O, Q & V"

Like Z3J ?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Like Z3J ?

YUP! Now you see where Jaguar got his good looks!! His dam was 3TZ. This is a picture of HER dam 3T

 

[701CattleCo]

Mother's number, heifers in right ear, steers in left. First cycle ends May 1 so later calves get an M at top of tag. Heifers that may be replacements get an engraved button tag. Rest get cheap Z tag feedlot tags with ink.
Heifers going into herd get engraved cow tags.
Went to engravable tags after a year of ink pens from a bad batch that faded to oblivion after 6 months.

We changed convention this year from calf order and went to simply listing the cow's # on the the calf's ear tag (we freeze brand all cows). Heifers get orange tags and steers get blue. Replacement heifers get branded with birth year as first digit and then a reference to their mother (if possible). So, a 2024 born heifer from cow 015 might be branded 415 if I'm keeping her as a replacement.

I have a question about freeze branding. What method do I use dry ice or nitrogen. How long do u leave iron on. Shave area? Spray with alcohol. I f branded my new bulls and none turned out

 

[GoWyo]

Dry ice and denatured alcohol. Clip the area as close as possible. Spray denatured alcohol, then apply iron firmly and hold for 60 seconds and keep spraying alcohol on the brand area. They usually rattle the chute at the 6-10 second mark. Skin under the brand mark area should be frozen stiff when done.

 

[RDFF]

What @GoWyo said. We used to freeze brand all of our yearling heifers in the dairy herd just before breeding, worked pretty well. Numbers got larger as they grew. We used liquid nitrogen poured into a cooler with the brands all in it. Handles were about 12" long. When we applied to the animal, just hold the iron (number part) with a well insulated glove right against the hide, instead of trying to hold it by the handle... when they jumped around, it was much easier to ensure you held it solidly in place without moving it around on her. We didn't have a squeeze chute... were just doing them in a stanchion, so they had plenty of room to move around on us. Squeeze chute would be the ideal... Important to clip short, and to soak with alcohol, to ensure even cooling of the hide. Choose a decently "meaty" spot, rather than an area like on the ribs, where contact pressure could vary more.

 

[Spot & Bubby]

Like most do, tag different color & different ear - RED tag heifers in left ear - YELLOW tag males in right ear - use international letter (N for 2025) My farm colors are red & yellow!
Cow families are extremely important to me (purebred herd). The cow pictured is Miss Lass - she was 12 in this picture. She was a #3 - I have half my herd are #3's. All offspring for generations - she was born 25 years ago.
I have gotten creative with my letters since after a couple of years, I had more #3's calving.
Example: 3K (born 2022) would have K3N this year. Letters in front can tell me the dam, and letter at end tells me year born - but 3 tells me the cow family.
My first year calving was letter E - I have used letter "E" 3 different years - been doing this a while like several others on this board.
I have a few #9's - that goes back to the first year we ever calved - commercial cows bred to Fullblood Simmental - numbered in order of birth.
And the international year letter does not use "I, O, Q & V"

My goodness, @Jeanne ! That's one beautiful cow!

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Nice cow. B&B MISS POWER LASS K1. I know that you have posted some in the past about this cow, but I hope it is ok if I brag a little for you. She produced 64 calves. 28 males and 36 females. From many different sires. Some of those calves owned by billionaires, even. (Probably no billionaires on this forum, but rumor has it that my friend Jeanne's cow caught the eye of some billionaires. And she has friends in high places).

I hope I got the right info on that cow.

How the heck did you know her official name? Yes, you got that right.
I don't imagine anyone on here knows who Hudson Pines Farm is - but it was a Simmental farm owned by Peggy Rockefeller ("the" David Rockefeller's wife) here in NY. They leased Miss Lass from me and conventional flushed her - payment to me was half the embryos sired by top sires in the nation that I would never have been able to purchase that early in their career. HPF ended up leasing 3 different cows from me, but Miss Lass was the most prolific - averaging 19 freezable embryos per flush. That picture was taken while she was at the Rockefeller farm. Quit cycling at 16 years old. The matriarch of my #3 cow family.

 

[Spot & Bubby]

How the heck did you know her official name? Yes, you got that right.
I don't imagine anyone on here knows who Hudson Pines Farm is - but it was a Simmental farm owned by Peggy Rockefeller ("the" David Rockefeller's wife) here in NY. They leased Miss Lass from me and conventional flushed her - payment to me was half the embryos sired by top sires in the nation that I would never have been able to purchase that early in their career. HPF ended up leasing 3 different cows from me, but Miss Lass was the most prolific - averaging 19 freezable embryos per flush. That picture was taken while she was at the Rockefeller farm. Quit cycling at 16 years old. The matriarch of my #3 cow family.

That is a great story!