Arrrrggggghhhhhh!!!

[grassfarmer]

What numbskull thought up the CCIA website for registering calf birth dates? I just thought I would try it out as we are getting a few calves on the ground now - it took me 30 minutes to register 15 working as fast as my computer would allow with all the info in front of me.
Have the creators of the system not tried internet banking? The banks quickly learnt that it makes more sense to allow you to put payment details in for several invoices at the same time rather than individually.
No, CCIA has decided that each calf is a seperate entry to be submitted then confirmed on the next page - all of which takes time on a dial-up old computer. Of course I see we could learn how to submit the info by "Excel something or other" which is fine if you are a computer junkie and have a machine that can run the system. I haven't.
I guess most will just opt to use the day the herd started calving as an easier option. What a waste of a potentially good system and expensive EID eartags.

[ALLFARMER]

Toronto Dominion & Credit Union's let you pay bills all at once...the only one that doesn't is Alberta Treasury Branch, Go figure.

[kato]

I found the same thing. We need to email them, or phone them and tell them to put a form there to fill in.

The way it's set up now only works easily if you tagged a bunch of cattle on the same day, and the tags were in order. I don't know about everyone else here, but at our place the calves are tagged as they are born, and the tags are just pulled out of the bag, not necessarily in order.

Whenever I've phoned them in the past they've been good to work with. I would bet they'll listen if we grouch enough! LOL

[grassfarmer]

I will contact them, some of my suggestions based on seeing the evolution of the UK system and the EU passports would be:

1. Next year have CCIA dangle eartags available with room to write on. Each calf wears one of these AND an EID stud in the other ear - solves the tag/identity loss issue. It is a compulsory scheme - drop this guess what day my calving period started crap - everybody records birthdates.

2. Set up a simpler program to enter cattle data with CCIA via computer. It can't be hard to improve on the current one.

3. Producers pay only a nominal sum for these tags, perhaps $1 per calf. Send the bill for the rest to the packers - they are benefitting from quicker reading of EIDs and can well afford to finance the scheme. Any complaints and we could point out that we already pay all their advertising and much of their marketing costs through CBEF/ABP/CCA)
While we are at it demand that all slaughter data be returned to birth herd giving producers some useful information.

3. The Federal Government fastrack a data collection system for EIDs in auction marts. I saw this demonstrated 10 years ago in the UK and it is the way to go. Mount readers on unloading chutes or a single animal race at the auction and the numbers are read and uploaded onto a computer faster than you can run the cattle through. Read them in and read them out and you have a record of where the cattle came from and where they went.
This also allows you to collect movement data to trace animals in a hurry if needed. As the current system stands EIDs will only give the farm of origin - in a case like the first BSE cow we would be back to reading livestock manifests and brands to trace their movements.
Accomplish that and Canada might truly have a world leading cattle identity scheme.

[kato]

Sounds good to me!

[gopher]

I also started calving this week and went to enter the first 15 head into the CCIA website. I found it a real pain. Like Kato I carry the tagging equip. on the quad and just grab a loose tag from the tool box and tag each calf as they are born. Because the tags are not in numerical order they have to be entered into the program one tag at a time. This makes the registering very unfriendly. Also the producer spends considerable time entering information and gets very little in return. The program is designed only with CCIA staff in mind. I feel there should be more of a data base component to it so we could use it as a management tool.