In Case You Missed It

[Northern Rancher]

http://ranchers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48743

I hardly ever look in Bull Session or Political Bull but I was killing time yesterday and found this. I think it's very relevant to Ranch Talk at least for the Canadians on here. For my two cents worth the EID tag thing is going to go down as one of the most colossal money wasters ever imposed on the Canadian rancher. While the theory and premise is quite sound the fact is THEY DON'T STAY IN. We used to use a metal clip tag for Bangs testing that were very good at retention. It's going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out because alot of producers are talking about not using them any more. Ourselves we tag at branding but you still have to check and retag when you ship. I know some of the people involved with this case also just a pretty bizarre deal.

 

[Jassy]

I agree...we had a bad batch of buttons 2 yrs ago, and majority of cows had lost em...We use to EID calves when born, but it got to expensive, so now we just EID the the heifers that we keep for cows...Basically the EID's are for our own identification cause we have everything on computer..it has saved time when working in a chute, and if the plastic tag is missing, I can track it by the EID..so that works well for us...so not really using the EID system as it was meant to be used..and that's ok for us...

 

[Northern Rancher]

I double tag with dangle tags-mothers tag at birth-if I can catch them lol. Then if we keep them they get their own and we number brand them. There's a big push on up hewre for everybody to buy EID readers but not sure I want to spend the money on one to read tags laying on the ground. I wonder if they could develop something like a rumen magnet to put in so it won't get lost and could still be scanned.

 

[RSL]

We EID and tag with Z tags at branding. We will occasionally "mother up" tags to cows off the horse, but we pull DNA on our replacement heifers when we further process them at weaning, so we know 100% for sure who is who anyway. We don't tag at birth, largely because of time and even more importantly because we are either too lazy to get off the horse, can't catch a calf in the bush going 100 mph, or no one here has any particular death wish (our cows tend to be quite "maternal").

We have usually had 95%+ retention with EID tags but last year we hit a batch where the buttons just fell off (same tagger, same technician, same location, same side of the head, same environment). We tested some tags for CCIA once that had about a 10% retention. They did not make it to market, but we still had to pay for the tags and replacements.

Before we ship we check the cattle, and I send a signed afadavit with every load that they were checked and tagged when they stepped onto the truck. This will hopefully prevent the tag cops from randomly picking us out of the group for one or two missing tags.

We do have an EID reader that I put together from components on Ebay. It is a heavy duty handheld computer with a scanner. It kind of looks like the kind they carry around the store shelves at a Walmart. It has some Cow/Calf software I grabbed from U NV for about $30. It works pretty well, and I was able to keep the price right. Also got a 50% rebate through a program I can't remember the name of.

We do have one or two older bulls that may have lost tags, but I will have to pay to have them tagged at the market. I don't think they can even fit down our chute, although I retagged a 5 year old bull for sale this summer that was just standing in the alley. It was good for a bit of a rush.

I was/am supportive of national ID and personal responsibility and even volunteered to toughen up by going on a speaking tour of producer events. The basic premise worked pretty well and it was to Tag cattle that leave the farm with a tag that is tied to your contact information. I have some pretty serious questions about direction and practicality in the Canada today.

FWIW - we brand our cows too.

 

[Northern Rancher]

I wonder what the whole fiasco has cost the beef industry-when we put all the 'feel good about ourselves' rhetoric aside. Between lost tags, injuries-I have a friend crippled for life from tagging a bull- and labor it's running into millions. Randillianna I bet can vouch for this-the auction marts hate them. Nothing worse than unloading a semiload of calves and having the trucker hand you a baggie with 5 EID tags in it-"Cowboy X was wondering if you could peel off the five calves and tag them". A good idea-poorly researched- and crammed down the cow/calf mans throat who has to foot the entire bill. If the tags would of at least offered some info back to the producer-ie-carcass data-there might be less resistance. Branding might not be perfect but there are fewer blotched brands around than lost tags. I just had a conversation with a friend up here-a yearling of his had been 'discovered' with a tag in it that he'd purchased the year previous to its calving date. He had to carefully explain that just because he bought it then didn't mean he'd put it in then. It's only a matter of time before someone with deep enough pockets takes this to the courts.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Not to argue but to get a tagging program started producers didn't want anybody to know how many cattle they had and to be anonymous, so that is why the ownership info is held by CCIA for use in case of disease outbreak. Then the first cow that turns up missing people complain because the brand inspectors can't find out from the tag who's cow it is. Same with carcass data.
We should have demanded more us of the tags not less. Lots of time the carcass data is still attached to the tag number when it comes back to CCIA for retirement and they just delete it.

Some of these issues we just shot ourselves in the foot.

I do agree the ear tag police are getting heavy handed and they do need to work on the retention problems. Also if they want to layer uses beyond disease surveillance on these tags then it shouldn't be just the primary producer that foots the bill.

 

[Northern Rancher]

It's a good idea whose time hasn't come-as far as hiding how many cattle you have-wake up and smell the coffee people.

 

[Anonymous]

Yep-- the Australians got it shoved down their throat- and mandated to them-- and said the same thing....And some of their enviromental conditions nowhere come close to ours...

But we have those in this country that still won't listen to either countries- or this countries trial project areas- and still want to play into the big industries/high techs pockets and shove it down everyones throats.....