age verification?

[cowman]

Recently read an article by Roy Rutledge where he advised people to be vigilant about getting their cattle to slaughter at an early age. Apparently cattle buyers don't worry too much about age verifiction when determining what is over thirty months and what is under thirty months! They go by how the animal looks!
Now I wonder what sort of standards are going to be set up for Japan? How are the under 21 month cattle going to be determined? Roy says cattle only 20 months old can fail the teeth test for UTM so obviously dentification won't work?
Does anybody know what Japan needs to accept beef as being 21 months or less?
Now I would suggest there should be a premium on those big exotic calves that could be pushed hard to finish right around that 12-15 month range? The British calves that need to grow out before going on heavy feed could be a problem?

[rkaiser]

Good Grief Cowman, what decade are you dealing with.

British breeds will gain as fast on feed as your almighty char cross, and finish even faster if pushed. They may not weigh 1500 pounds at 14 to 16 months, but guess what cowman, even Cargill and Tyson don't want those big cattle any more.

I will agree that this may affect the folks who are used to backgrounding, grassing and then finishing, but to make this into a breed thing is a pretty darn far reach. LOL

[smcgrath76]

We can easily provide DOB of first and last calf. We are currently debating whether to go "whole hog" and try to do individual birthdate information. This means tagging calves at (or near)birth, which is a significant management headache for us. We are in the midst of debating whether the extra work and added cost is worth it and trying to sort out all the added costs.

[Horse]

This age verifaction is a bit of a red hering thing Some yr ago I was going to spay some hfrs and talked to 2 feedlots and they said it wouldnt make any dif in prices because they dont fit into any programs so with out total complyance to age ver they still will be mixing cattle and same problem they dont fit.

[pmckenna]

Somebody may have already said this, but even when age is well verifiable, dentition is still used for sake of shipping on time, should a calf develop early. Better to ship a UTM calf while it still looks like one.

[topper]

I just sold a load of age verified steers on wednesday and they sold for the same price as all the rest. I won't be bothering to age verify again until I can see some value from my extra work.

[cowman]

Randy: Yes I was talking about the people who do the grass yearling thing before finishing. It can be difficult with large exotic cattle because they do have a tendency to get too big. They fit better into a program where they are pushed hard to finish around 12-15 months in that 1300 lb. range...this weight fits nicely in a box, which is the only way Cargill sells beef...not sure about Tyson?
I never said there aren't British breeds out there that can't do this? But often you have more options with them?
I don't think dentification can tell cattle under 21 months? Which is the Japanese requirement? There was an article in beef today about measuring age by bone ossification. Is this what Japan will require or will registered age verification be enough?
Apparently mandatory age verification is coming down the pipes and we won't have much of a choice? Some people might find it very inconvenient, just like they found registered ID inconvenient, but for the sake of food safety(and market acceptability) it is going to happen? Better to be ahead of the game than behind the eight ball? Other than a very few bought cows we have the birth dates on every animal here, including the cows we bought last year.
How hard is it to write down a couple of numbers in those little calving books when a calf is born? How hard is it to transfer those numbers to the CCIA once you put in the RFID tag?

[cowman]

I also read an article a couple of months ago about a high end Japanese supermarket where the customer could take the steak/roast over to a scanner and read where the beef was born, how old it was, its complete history of how it was fed etc.?
Now obviously the Japanese price is a lot higher than here , but isn't this a possiblity somewhere down the road? I assume guys like Randy who sell a premium product provide some sort of information to their customers?
Think of yourself as a beef consumer? Would you like to be able to know all these things when you were buying that prime rib down at Safeway?
With the RFID tag all this can be possible...without a huge extra cost? You cow/calf men are already doing the tagging, place of birth and age verification? Is it unreasonable to expect the feedlots and packers to record a bit of information like days on feed, type of feed, pesticides, hormones given? Then let the consumer decide what he wants?

[pascal]

From a recent article in the Canadian Cattlemen on age verification it looks like the U.S. will use bone ossification - A00 - A100. A40 being under 18 months. The U.S. gov/t sets the rules and does all the work to age verification. Yet here we go, the gov't CFIA makes all the rules and the producers stand all costs and work with tagging requirements. It is still questionable whether Japan will accept our system. Looks like we have been outdone again.

[smcgrath76]

Our problem with individual age verification...
Time and Money
We have only two goals with our cowherd. Reduce costs or increase value. This means I will gladly spend $4 if it means we are planning to get $5 back.
To reduce costs we calve later, don't corral cows and try to keep labour to a minimum. Individually tagging calves represents a lot of labour and time for us, and potentially not a huge reward. Calves are all tagged with EID and a YOB visual tag (usually at branding time). When heifers are AIed the first time, they recieve a permanent steel bangs tag as well, that is cross referenced to CCIA and visual tag.
Individual birthdates are a pain as it means we would have to rope each and every calf on the half section and tag it on or near the day of birth. While our roping skills would improve, it does represent a significant change in labour and costs for us.
If mandated we will do it, and we will do it right. Currently we are considering it, and will proceed if and only if it appears it will add some value. I am not sure it will, I hope I am wrong.

[Horse]

How hard is it to write down the date of birth? I remember the 4H and the date of birth for calves sure is funny how some of those calves took 2/3 days as long to age as some others .
Had a cattle dealer neibour that made his living by buying red tag cows and turning them into green tags whitch are 90 days longer in calf, not to say everyone is like that but there are enough to cast a huge shadow on this age verification.
Mabey we could have them all calve in a hospital and have the DR fill out a birthing report.
Cowman it is only going to happen if we say it is, it is not a faidecomple?

[cowman]

Sean: Well I assume you check your darned cows once in awhile when they are calving? If your cows only have a bangs tag then I can see your problem but not with a dangle tag? Wouldn't you simply write down Mommas tag number, date, sex of calf? Then RFID tag them when you trim them up at branding? You record the RFID number in the same book as you have the calving date and send the info into the CFIA?
You are already paying for the tag and doing the labor so how much extra does it cost you?
Horse: I don't think we have much of a choice? If the CFIA says do it we will have to, just like we had to use ID tags? And yes it is sad that some people will always try to cheat the system and in the end we will probably have to rely on the ossification thing anyway.

[redcountry]

Are we going to be allowed to keep the birth dates in our herd book and put rfid tags on at weaning and still file the birth dates with ccia
My question is how long do we have, to file these dates?.
Each calf now gets a tag with dam ,birth date & sex at birth.

[cowman]

red country: That is what we did. Put in a dangle tag at birth, put in a RFID tag at weaning and sent in the data from the calving book. Got a nice letter from the CCIA thanking us for being so progressive! We'll see if there is any money in it down the road!

[kato]

Heck, we even submitted our 2004 calves. Some of them were already fattened and gone at the time.

This year we're making it a little simpler at calving, and putting regular tags with cow number and birthdate on them when the calves are born, and then do the RFID tags when they go to pasture. It's really not that hard to do if you calve in the yard, but I can see the problem with pasture calving if you're not around all the time. Those pasture born calves are a little frisky!! LOL

As for the dentition, teeth can't be used to tell a calf that's 18 months from one that's 24. Not reliably anyway. Those first baby teeth come out sometime in that time span, and it varies from calf to calf. Sometimes by a couple of months.