Working the Heifers

[randiliana]

A few days ago we ran all the yearling heifers through to get their weights and to replace their calf tags with a 'cow' sized tag. This will be their ID until they are culled from the herd...

Waiting for their turn.

Who's Next

Next Up

Can I go Yet??

Next step, new tags...

C'mon down the alley

Out with the old...

In with the new

Helper

All done, ready to go

 

[bigbull338]

nice looking set of heifers.

 

[Tim/South]

nice looking set of heifers.

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[ANAZAZI]

My three thoughts when reading this: 1. Nice, deep heifers!
2. Oh no, i would never bother to change the tags on my cattle (if they did not lose theirs)
3. the dark red heifer seems to have a very short tail, a frost damage?

 

[Deepsouth]

It looks cold.

Nice calves.

 

[randiliana]

My three thoughts when reading this: 1. Nice, deep heifers!
2. Oh no, i would never bother to change the tags on my cattle (if they did not lose theirs)
3. the dark red heifer seems to have a very short tail, a frost damage?

Thank for the compliments!

Tags must be changed, they have the same tag as their dam, plus they're just written with a marker and I find that will fade sooner rather than later. New tags are written with the bottled ink and, will last the life of the heifer, plus more.

Yes, she has a short tail, and ears, (she's not the only one). Frost damage, it was a very cold calving season last year. Unusually cold.

 

[randiliana]

It looks cold.

Nice calves.

Thanks,

Actually it was a pretty nice day. Above freezing, and the snow was melting.

 

[ANAZAZI]

My three thoughts when reading this: 1. Nice, deep heifers!
2. Oh no, i would never bother to change the tags on my cattle (if they did not lose theirs)
3. the dark red heifer seems to have a very short tail, a frost damage?

Thank for the compliments!

Tags must be changed, they have the same tag as their dam, plus they're just written with a marker and I find that will fade sooner rather than later. New tags are written with the bottled ink and, will last the life of the heifer, plus more.

Yes, she has a short tail, and ears, (she's not the only one). Frost damage, it was a very cold calving season last year. Unusually cold.

:tiphat:

Ok, why do they not get the final tags at once? Perhaps that is what I wondered. Do only the keepers get numbers? Here all get numbers soon after birth and keep them for life.

Do you see other frost damage than ears and tails? Are they ever affected later in life?
Sorry, many questions, we both live in cold places but our calving is in three months...

 

[Toad]

I do tags the same way, the calves get numbers that match their mothers so they are easy to identify. Then those weaned heifers that I want to keep for replacements get there own cow numbers.

 

[randiliana]

My three thoughts when reading this: 1. Nice, deep heifers!
2. Oh no, i would never bother to change the tags on my cattle (if they did not lose theirs)
3. the dark red heifer seems to have a very short tail, a frost damage?

Thank for the compliments!

Tags must be changed, they have the same tag as their dam, plus they're just written with a marker and I find that will fade sooner rather than later. New tags are written with the bottled ink and, will last the life of the heifer, plus more.

Yes, she has a short tail, and ears, (she's not the only one). Frost damage, it was a very cold calving season last year. Unusually cold.

:tiphat:

Ok, why do they not get the final tags at once? Perhaps that is what I wondered. Do only the keepers get numbers? Here all get numbers soon after birth and keep them for life.

Do you see other frost damage than ears and tails? Are they ever affected later in life?
Sorry, many questions, we both live in cold places but our calving is in three months...

Yes only the keepers get numbers. Calves are tagged the same as their mothers, its much easier to sort for pastures and make sure that they get there with their mama. Its not good to send mama to one pasture and baby to another .

Once in a while we see worse than ears and tails, usually it is feet, which you won't often find out about until mid summer. We do our best to try and keep frozen ears and tails from happening, and definitely feet. We have one that froze his nose last spring, that was a new one, and his feet are fine. He's a pretty good steer, but he looks funny. We will eat him.

He was one that shouldn't have happened, we were checking every couple hours, and his mama, a heifer just dumped him out in between. -40 wind chills don't take long to freeze them, and very unusual to have temps like that in March. Hindsight, we should have probably brought him to the house, but thought he would be fine, he was up and looking to suck when we found him.

Sometimes, if its cold enough, they will lose their ear/s after being tagged(up to the tag). Because it interferes with the blood flow, and I think the tags attract the cold.

 

[Supa Dexta]

When working in the woods and you have a wet hole that wont freeze over on a road way, you stick a branch in it and the frost will follow down the stick and get the puddle to freeze. An ear tag can do the same type of thing to an ear. It concentrates the cold and spreads from there.

 

[Nesikep]

I had a yearling steer freeze the tips of his ears this year.. he had BIG ears, and you can't tell he's got any missing.. it wasn't that cold, and he was the only one. I blame it on a cold rain and 0F the next morning with wind.

They're looking nice Randi!

I have a small enough herd the heifers get 'cow' tags from the get go

 

[MO_cows]

In spite of color differences, they look uniform to me for size and "type". Did the weights bear that out?

 

[randiliana]

Thanks, again for all the nice compliments!

The heifers averaged about 750 lbs and the majority were between 700-800 lbs. There was just a handful under that and about the same over. Pretty even for the most part.

 

[Nesikep]

I think that's exactly around the weight mine are at, with the big steer and bull calf probably in the 900's somewhere

 

[grubbie]

As always, I enjoyed your pictures. You guys have my kind of cattle. Great looking animals!