We tag all of ours, but it sure turns into a project.  Peach Blossom does most of the tagging, and Saddletramp serves as bodyguard.  They just sneak through the newborns on their horses, and as my tophand wife tags, Saddletramp on a good horse keeps the cow away until the tag is in place.

On Friday, the three of us spent most of the afternoon sorting pairs.  We gathered a bunch of 280 cows and their calves, and sorted out all the red cows, all the red calves, and all the older selling cows along with their respective mates.  The job would be very difficult, if not impossible, without corresponding ear tags.  When we were done, we had just over a hundred pairs cut out, which shaped up about 180 black and black baldy cows with black calves.  They really looked nice for a while.  A bit of misfortune came our way, and last night a snap on a gate lever malfunctioned and both bunches got back together.   :?    :x  :roll:  :wink:

Anyway, we all like to ride and it's a good thing, because we get to do the whole project over tomorrow.  I want to get them grouped properly before turning bulls out.  Before we get all of our spring sorting done, most of the calves are sexed and sorted for color before going to summer pasture.  Then in the fall, we can precondition calves before weaning in the proper order in which they will be selling.  Tags sure help with all of our messing around.