rancherjongus
New member
Unfortunatley big muddy rancher Manitoba does not have brand inspections. The notion was that RFID tags were enough. Not too sure how anybody can come to that conclusion. I ran a bunch of grassers that were raised at my place for a summer. I tagged 100 of them. They were straight out the chute and into the pasture on the homestead so there was no chance of rustling or snagging tags on twine in bale feeders. I made good and sure that those tags were put in correctly because I did not want to run those crazy yahoos back through the chute when it was time to ship them out to the local cattle buyer. They would have spent a good 3 maybe 4 months on grass( for the love of me I can't remember)
But when those grassers came into the coral to get shipped there was 14 tags missing! Now I'm not a brain surgeon but that hardly seems like the "fool proof" system that these tags are made out to be! Not only that but the fellow who might rustle one of these cattle that lost there tags would not even be guilty of tampering with the tags would they? Now this might be going out on a limb but I think it's becoming an animal rights issue. Manitoba has now passed legislation that animal welfare officers have jurisdiction over agricultural animals. Meaning if some one sees me branding an animal. It now becomes up to the welfare officers discretion if I'm abusing these animals or not. I feel if Manitobans had a brand inspection it would be a "possible excuse" to brand these animals. But without brand inspections it becomes a moot point. Maybe I'm being a bit of a conspiracy theorist here, but with all the pressure that the livestock sector has been receiving from fringe animal rights groups Sometimes I begin to wonder. What are your thoughts?
