Weight tapes on new borns

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Alan

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Has anyone used a regular weight tape to get the BW of a newborn. Spoke to a guy who did this and calmed it was pretty close. I tried it on the calf we got the other day and matched it with the calf tape (hoof tape). It was pretty close, but the hoof tape has a + or - 7lbs. I should say I won't mess with scales at this point, been there done that, my cattle calve in the pasture, so unless there seems to be a problem they are not brought into the barn.

BW is important, but as you can tell close is good enough, but + or - 7lbs is too much. Just wondering how close the girth tape is on new borns.

Thanks,
Alan
 
We tried the hoof tape one year. It was off quite a bit from the scales. So we went back to the scales.
 
The girth tape had the newborn at 92lbs, the hoof tape had him at 103. I picked him up and am thinking closer to 80 to 85lbs. Again not important enough at this stage to take him, or bring a scale to him. Unless someone can tell me why it would be. I recorded him at 90 lbs.

Alan
 
I've always wondered how much weight gain there could be from newborn (before its first drink) and 3 days (max age for birth weight recording in herefords in SA). To my mind it seems as it could make a major difference.

I have tried the girth tape, but for it to be succesfull with any degree of accuracy the calf needs to be standing in a normal position. Not too many newborns would be quite that cooperative at my place.

It will have to be the bathroom scales while holding the calf in your arms again this season.
 
Frankie":q13qpq1m said:
We tried the hoof tape one year. It was off quite a bit from the scales. So we went back to the scales.

We weighed and hoof taped about 20-25 calves a few years back just for the heck of it.

The BW ratios from the scale weights and the tape weights worked out to be exactly the same.
 
how much did the actual weights vary between the tape and the scales. Good to know the ratios worked out the same, thanks for posting that.
 
KNERSIE":2xsvxih5 said:
how much did the actual weights vary between the tape and the scales. Good to know the ratios worked out the same, thanks for posting that.

Here are my results so far using the scale, and then the hoof tape. Actual weight on the scale is first (hoof tape in brackets) with the weight difference behind.

Bull - 46 (55) +11 lbs
Heifer - 101 (90) -11 lbs
Heifer - 90(89) +/-1 lb
Heifer - 91(80) -11 lbs
Heifer - 106(114) +8 lbs
Bull - 54(65) +11 lbs
Heifer - 87(88) +/-1 lb
Bull - 66(77) +11 lbs
Bull - 93(100) +7 lbs
Bull - 70 (88) +18 lbs
Heifer - 66(67) +/-1lb
Heifer - 80(79) +/-1 lb
Heifer - 106(93) -13 lbs

The ones that are within a pound or 2 I would call accurate, but the worst one is off by 18 lbs, with another off by 13 lbs. Don't have much faith in the thing.
 
KNERSIE":2kvp1qhh said:
I've always wondered how much weight gain there could be from newborn (before its first drink) and 3 days (max age for birth weight recording in herefords in SA). To my mind it seems as it could make a major difference.

It will have to be the bathroom scales while holding the calf in your arms again this season.

I've often wondered this too...how much weight does a calf actually gain during its first 24 hours or so? (I could answer my own question by weighing it at birth and then a day or so later, but I haven't tried doing that.)

I use a bathroom scale and I try to weigh the calf as soon as I can.
 
randiliana":2k4mr0jw said:
KNERSIE":2k4mr0jw said:
how much did the actual weights vary between the tape and the scales. Good to know the ratios worked out the same, thanks for posting that.

Here are my results so far using the scale, and then the hoof tape. Actual weight on the scale is first (hoof tape in brackets) with the weight difference behind.

Bull - 46 (55) +11 lbs
Heifer - 101 (90) -11 lbs
Heifer - 90(89) +/-1 lb
Heifer - 91(80) -11 lbs
Heifer - 106(114) +8 lbs
Bull - 54(65) +11 lbs
Heifer - 87(88) +/-1 lb
Bull - 66(77) +11 lbs
Bull - 93(100) +7 lbs
Bull - 70 (88) +18 lbs
Heifer - 66(67) +/-1lb
Heifer - 80(79) +/-1 lb
Heifer - 106(93) -13 lbs

The ones that are within a pound or 2 I would call accurate, but the worst one is off by 18 lbs, with another off by 13 lbs. Don't have much faith in the thing.

That is very interesting. I personally thank you for taking your time to do this and posting it for us to see. Very eye-opening.

cfpinz
 
Thanks Randiliana!

From your weights it seems that the hoof tape isn't worth much more than my guesses would be. Will have to stick to the bathroom scales, like it or not.
 
I am planning to do MOST of our calves, and there is about 150 left to calve. So we will see in the end. The problem that I see with it is that it only takes into account hoof circumfrence, not the shape of the calf or the condition of the calf when it is born.

We used a bathroom scale for a while. Worked well enough, as long as you weren't too heavy, and as long as you could lift the calf and then lean over it to read the weight. We had a few that I couldn't do that with ;-)
 
randiliana":lpjopi3g said:
We used a bathroom scale for a while. Worked well enough, as long as you weren't too heavy, and as long as you could lift the calf and then lean over it to read the weight. We had a few that I couldn't do that with ;-)

I too want to take the time to say thank you for taking the time to do the comparison. A big help for me, tells me what I suspected.

I can't do the bathroom scales, because of the problem listed above, I'm about 250 to 260lbs most of the time, so it doesn't take much of a calf to max out the scales. My son is coming up today and we will get two new borns weighed.

Thanks again,
Alan
 

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