wieght of the calf

[jrcattleranch]

How are you weighting a calf at birth? Do you take a bathroom scale out in the fields and pick up the calf and stand on the scale with the calf and subtract your weight?
interested in how everyone does this.

 

[angus9259]

bathroom scale. hate it. gotta switch.

 

[Caustic Burno]

:lol2: :lol2: :lol2: Bathroom scale that was good and I needed a laugh. Weight tape is how I do it.

 

[angus9259]

Love the idea of a weigh tape - looked into it but haven't found one accurate enough for a birth weight. Do you have a website link for one? Thanks.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Love the idea of a weigh tape - looked into it but haven't found one accurate enough for a birth weight. Do you have a website link for one? Thanks.

http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html ... gas=Weight Tape

 

[dun]

We run them through the scale before they're 2 days old

 

[Alan]

This is a repost from a older post, I've been doing this for a few years now, it works great.

Alan


Weighing calves thanx pdfangus
by Alan on Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:37 am

Early in the calving season, 3 on the ground so far. But thanks to a post by pdfangus a while ago I do have a great method for weighing calves. This has been posted before but it's just so easy for one person I had to post it again. I have 2-5 foot long section of pipe that screw together, I drilled a hole and put an eye bolt about 2 foot down from one end. Tie the calf (as if I was pretending I was a calf roper ), stick the end of the pipe without the eye bolt in the ground, hang the scale from the eye bolt and lift the calf by the tie. The pipe is used for leverage with very little effort by me. I can tag and give shots and spray navels with the calf tied. What a great system, and another great piece of knowledge learned from this site.

Although, I did wait until the day after the last calf was born (about 24 hrs) to weigh and tag. An 84 lb bull calf. I thought I was wrestling a month old calf as strong as he was. I was glad I caught him while he was sleeping or he may still be running. Won't wait so long next time.

Just thought I would share.

Alan

 

[randiliana]

We've used the bathroom scale before, problem with it is that it only goes up to 300 lbs, which means if you are a big person, you have a limited amount of weight you can add before you top the scale out. It can work though.

Now what we use is our single animal scale. Every calf makes a trip by our barn with in about 24 hours of birth, they go over the scale (takes about a minute) get tagged, banded, dehorned and whatever else is needed and then get kicked out with all the other freshly born calves.

 

[tamarack]

I used to be hog farmer so i still had hog scale on wheels pull behind quad works great calves stand in crate and lever pulls on scale should be lots of used ones around as small hog farmers are virtualy gone.

 

[MO_cows]

Did the bathroom scale method one year. I had to be the one to hoist the calf and make my weight public since we didn't have enough digits for husband + calf. Doing the tape right now but I don't think it is accurate enough. We had a cow go overdue and had to pull a monster of a bull calf and the tape only showed 94 pounds.

Sportsman's Guide has a game scale that is reasonable, want to try and rig up a way to hoist the calf and weigh with game scale next year. Was thinking 2 old cinches might do it, and the rings would hook right on to the game scale. If it works, I'll post a pic. :banana:

 

[ga.prime]

I used to weigh my calves with a weigh tape. Found out all my calves weigh 83 lbs at birth. Once in a while one would weigh 78 lbs or 87 lbs, but that's not much different than 83 lbs when you think about it. Now, I don't weigh calves anymore.

 

[redcowsrule33]

We use a sling and hanging scale. Takes two people but goes quick. Went to a digital scale last year and like it. Never used a tape, too inaccurate, wish I weighed what the tape would say

 

[vclavin]

We did tape until told how inaccurate it was. It seemd ok till around 80-90lbs then was off. We calve close to the digital scales and walk calf to scales or put in cage on tractor when too muddy to walk the calf (within 24 hours of birth). Thinking about buying another set of load bars and making a small scale to fit on back of tractor. Sort of a mini scale pen on wheels.
Valerie
PS. we also put dam's tag number and date of birth on tag front and back. Comes in handy at weaning.

 

[CKC1586]

Love the idea of a weigh tape - looked into it but haven't found one accurate enough for a birth weight. Do you have a website link for one? Thanks.

http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html ... gas=Weight Tape

Yup, that is where I got mine...they do a good job in my opinion. I use both the newborn and regular tapes to weigh my cattle. The regular weigh tapes don't seem to be as accurate with under 500# calves but real close on bigger.

 

[pdfangus]

my son has made a device that plugs into the hitch of his truck.
he hangs the scale from that.
he made a cradle out of some steel rod and picks the calf up with the cradle and hangs it on the scale.
he loves it and does the tagging and banding with the calf in the cradle.
I will see if I can get him to send me a photo of it or one of us will post it here.