The tagging crew

[woodland]

The kids got home from their half day of preschool and it was a beautiful day to go tag some new arrivals. My daughter loves to spot the water bags (notice the background) and saw two while tagging and then they watched us pull a first calver. Only been at it a week and hit 25% done today. Totally different and nicer than dealing with last years mud. My wife runs baseball bat to fend off momma while I tag since our girls are quite protective.

How does everyone else tag? My neighbor with his simmentals does it by himself since they’re all mellow but that wouldn’t fly here. If the bat does not deter them then cargill deals with them after weaning.

Good luck to everyone else this year🍀

[smcgrath76]

We only tag the purebreds at birth. I rope them, then either hoist them into the back of the truck/bale deck to tag and weigh. Sometimes we use the loader or weigh on the other side of a hot wire.
The commercial calves get tagged when we process. We vaccinate, knife cut the bulls and tag the calves. We process roughly every 3 weeks once we start calving (that way we know which are first cycle/second cycle calves by tag number). We also know that we have not missed vaccinating a calf, because any calf not vaccinated is not tagged.
The only exception would be if we treated a calf, in which case we use an orange tag (with the mom's # - if we know the mom) when we treat the calf. That way we can find it again quickly in a set of calves and also know that it has had antibiotics or some other treatment so we don't market it incorrectly.

[clayrwilliams]

After every calf is born its a simple as walking out and tagging them within a day or two of them being born. If I cant walk up to the cow smack her on the nose and tag the calf, she's too wild for our operation. Many claim you need crazy cattle for them to be protective from predators but we have yet to lose a calf to coyotes.

Every calf gets tagged the same as the cow as well as a CCIA tag. The tag has a letter corresponding to the age of the cow and each letter has its own tag colour. This is all entered in Herdtrax along with colour sex ect.

Everything else (castration, vaccination ect) happens at our annual branding the second week of May.

This system seems to work well for us and can be managed with just my wife and I. Its also nice because all the cows are done and out to grass by the middle of may allowing us time to get everything else done.

[boytefarms]

We try to tag and ring within 24 hours. During sleepy time. We drive through the herd many times a day slowly on the quad. They get pretty used to that. If we have a particularly protective mom we use what we call the shark cage. It's a feeder with many cross bars. Drop it over the calf and climb in - also good for tubing or bottle feeding if necessary. We very rarely need to use the shark cage.

[perfecho]

Did build a shark cage a few years back due to a new knee...but haven't used for a couple of years. Usually once a day with quad and a calf hook...like clay says, if I can't protect with only a swat on the nose, that gal is fired. ( One of the reason's I decided on Gelbvieh) I don't even have a handling system on there wintering calving ground...so things have to go well.....
Should just be starting now, but due to some friendly neighbors bulls, we have about 1/3 done....lucky the bull that got in with heifers was also I with a group of heifers.......I find this is the biggest issue with later calving.
Good luck to all....amazing what can happen in about 10 days of decent weather....any bets when we start hearing the "drought" word...;-)

[grassfarmer]

Our solution to protection while tagging is this modified stock rack - weld a lifting bar over the top then carry it with the loader bucket. Works very well in our situation doing day old calves in a field situation, maybe not a cowboy solution or something for the open range but it works for me. I have a little floored area at one end if you need to take a calf home with the mother following. We don't really need it on most of the cows but I tend to use it anyway - as an attack survivor I've learnt to be cautious lol.
Got nailed a decade ago by a bought-in overly "ranchy" Angus cow - just trying to get close enough to see the sex of calf when she charged me out of the blue. What you wouldn't believe until it happens to you is the velocity a cow can achieve over 15 feet from a standing start. Her head hit my chest going like a train, right over me and she luckily kept going with calf on her heel and didn't hang around to finish me off - I was down and out with broken collarbone, cracked ribs and a nicked lung. The point of this tale is you guys relying on a baseball bats and such - I had a stick with me and believe me you don't even have time to raise it in this situation before she hits you.
BE CAREFUL it is an extremely dangerous task - even if your cows are normally quiet you don't always know their state of mind. I had a newly calved heifer come at me last week - something that we normally never see with heifers - then I walked a little further and came across a coyote - I reckon it had been bugging the heifer before I came along and had her wound up.

[tweaker101]

That's a great idea Grassfarmer, we just grab the closest bale feeder and drop it over the calf and ring and tag them. We had just bought out a small herd of angus cross cows and yes they seemed to be really calm that is until they calved... its amazing how fast you can back pedal when that cow has her head down and charging you. Had one really close call so now we just take the bale feeder all the time, I'd like one of those calf cages for our ranger but not willing to spend the $3500 on one just yet...

[perfecho]

Being fat and slow, (and now old) I am quite careful.....and will likely go back to shark gage soon. There is one girl I do wait until she is away from her calf before I do anything, although it is only her look, she really hasn't done anything, With the quad, there is always a bit of protection....and I do notice some days I am bolder than others....but, what ever the system, be careful.

[WiltonRanch]

Been lucky to not been pummeled into the ground much by unruly mommas. Some I just won’t mess with if they charge. Have a loop stick I made for catching the faster ones. Most times get them tagged before they get that fast. Had our share of miserable ones when I was little. Can remember some real rodeos the family had. We laugh about them now cause no one seemed to get hurt. Today we don’t have those miserable types just mostly flighty idiots if a problem.

[smcgrath76]

This is interesting. One thing we have found at our place, since we calve in May/June and often in big pastures with a lot of terrain and bush is that our treatment rate is higher on the purebred calves than the commercial ones, and our survival is a bit lower. This is from a set of cows that are pretty closely related (pure and commercial). I attribute this to our tagging the purebreds. In our situation we have to get at those calves as soon as we see them or we may never have a chance to catch them again. I think that interference (especially with heifers) can create issues.

[grassfarmer]

That doesn't really surprise me Sean, cows manage better without human interference. I think that the upset factor will be worse calving when the grass is green like you do versus calving on banked grass as we do. We find the calves hang with the mothers better but once you have tall green grass more of the calf's wild instincts come in to play and they creep under fences to hide in long grass. I hate calving that late - cows separated from the calves and can't get to them, udders getting hefted, calves scouring, dehydrated calves, maggot fly troubles. Each to their own but an April 15th to May 30th calving periods is what I prefer - ideally they would all calve first cycle too !

[perfecho]

Interesting observations........Here, since they are mostly purebred, I have nothing to compare them to. But, they normally calve on swath grazing...this year I am seeding 1/4 of their "winter" site to grass and will do banked grass. It seems to take only a few days for the cows to accept the quad driving thru them without getting up much..unless I get real close..and majority of calves I can walk right up to or grab with hook on foot. Do have to "follow" a few the hook and quad, but try not to run them...although occasionally I do have to.
Their wintering site is usually down to a 60 acre piece during calving, quite open which really helps. My greatest fear of going to spring calving was the "wildness" of cows and calves on open fields, but maybe the older cows are still helping to keep calmness in heard....I also hand pail feed my replacement heifers so think that helps.
Have not noticed losing calves due to handling....once they are on the ground and sucking, really have had very few issues. Occasionally, if mom has too much milk and it gets really hot, there has been an issue, but seem to be culling the real heavy milkers. ( Which helped when Jan/Feb calving.)
Like GF, like that later April to June 1 calving....if there is a calf without a tag, it was pretty much born after June 1st, but this year you certainly didn't want to be too early in April.
But, all this is easier as well, due to lowering numbers....at about 60 and if any neighbors sell the rented land, it will speed up my retirement plan (or lack of).

[woodland]

It seems here if we don’t handle the calves when they’re a day old or less they are way more wild. The last 6-8 to calve sometimes don’t get tagged and those are the crazy buggers at weaning time. I guess they also missed branding as well which wouldn’t help.

[perfecho]

Well....as I was posting this morning, there was a gnawing feeling ..usually when you boast about how good things were going....and yeah, after tagging first calf, found a dead one....mamma has a bigger udder, 13 years old and I had put her on the "fired" list a week ago. Looks like her calf wasn't sucking, but I also don't get too upset anymore. The 20-30 minutes I spend with the cows each day sure beats the 4- 6 hours of feeding, handling, etc in the "old way"....so I feel this is a "more than fair" trade off. Also the cheque f4rom cull cows in June doesn't hurt.

[grassfarmer]

I think that's your "last calved" on green grass affect Woodland rather than any positive effect of handling at day old.

Working on these projects gets old perfecho - I had one older cow to bring in this year with one dry quarter and the other three welded shut - no way a calf could ever have started on them. Thankfully we get very, very few issues like these.

A further thought on your observation Sean - won't your purebreds have less heterosis by definition than your commercials? I wonder if that accounts for the more trouble/poorer survival versus handling them?