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To tag, or not to tag?

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North Ridge Ranching said:
Big Muddy rancher said:
Tagging cows can let you identify poor producers with out the hassle of tagging at birth which I felt was the intent of the question.

I do notch the ear on my steers at branding to help with sorting but most of my steers carry a little tag on their bellies that gets looked at for sorting. :wink: :lol: :lol:
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How does the cow being tagged and no corresponding calf tag help you know that a poor calf belongs to a certain cow at sale time if they aren't paired up and are instead, all mixed up in a corral. I know our black calves can look alot alike in the corral at sale time. I know, we all probably diagnose these calves during the summer on pasture, but a reminder at sale time doesn't hurt if you have a memory like I do.:???: :???:

I do like your comment on the steer tag under their bellies though. :D :D I usually don't struggle on identifying the steers from heifers either. I was talking more about sorting for pastures and breeding herds like you mentioned earlier.
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I just watch the cattle as we check them and put out mineral. If I see a poor calf on a cow I can just take note of the cows number. Then at weaning or preg checking she can be culled.
 
Tags can be priceless when bad neighbor "accidently" rounds up your calves at weaning time and the sheriff digs your tags out of neighbor's trash. I saw this happen back in the 80's, prices weren't as good then as now. I say tag and brand.
 
I know I don't have many cows, but I still contend, that a person doesn't need tags to have a successful cattle operation. I also contend that my neighbor, who doesn't have all of his cows tagged, and less then 20% of his calves tagged, does as close to as good of job of culling his cows as Soapweed does. Soap has documented his cows, and can tell you the year, and most likely the mother of most of his cows, and that is great, and works well for him. My neighbor, has almost all purchased cows, couldn't tell you even where most of his cows come from. Calves close to 900 head by himself, and can tell you with in a cow or 2, who's babies are who's.

If tagging makes you feel better, by all means do it, but I don't believe it is totally necessary.
 
LazyWP said:
I know I don't have many cows, but I still contend, that a person doesn't need tags to have a successful cattle operation. I also contend that my neighbor, who doesn't have all of his cows tagged, and less then 20% of his calves tagged, does as close to as good of job of culling his cows as Soapweed does. Soap has documented his cows, and can tell you the year, and most likely the mother of most of his cows, and that is great, and works well for him. My neighbor, has almost all purchased cows, couldn't tell you even where most of his cows come from. Calves close to 900 head by himself, and can tell you with in a cow or 2, who's babies are who's.

If tagging makes you feel better, by all means do it, but I don't believe it is totally necessary.
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I agree with you, and I don't think anybody else has said it either, tagging calves is by no means necessary. Pretty much everybody on here would get by just fine in this buisness without a tag on the farm.

The question was asked if tagging calves had any economical gain. I can't dispute anything anybody has said on here about not tagging calves, I just believe that there is an couple economical reasons to tag calves.

I feel pretty confident that even without tags, I could tell you which calf belongs to which cow alot of the time, but I guarentee that I could do it alot faster in my herd when the calves have tags than in a herd where they don't. I work a second job and time is money at my place.

I think this is what I like about this site. There is great conversations about things as small as tagging calves or not. There is no right or wrong answer to this question other than what is needed or works on each persons spread.
 
North Ridge Ranching said:
LazyWP said:
I know I don't have many cows, but I still contend, that a person doesn't need tags to have a successful cattle operation. I also contend that my neighbor, who doesn't have all of his cows tagged, and less then 20% of his calves tagged, does as close to as good of job of culling his cows as Soapweed does. Soap has documented his cows, and can tell you the year, and most likely the mother of most of his cows, and that is great, and works well for him. My neighbor, has almost all purchased cows, couldn't tell you even where most of his cows come from. Calves close to 900 head by himself, and can tell you with in a cow or 2, who's babies are who's.

If tagging makes you feel better, by all means do it, but I don't believe it is totally necessary.
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I agree with you, and I don't think anybody else has said it either, tagging calves is by no means necessary. Pretty much everybody on here would get by just fine in this buisness without a tag on the farm.

The question was asked if tagging calves had any economical gain. I can't dispute anything anybody has said on here about not tagging calves, I just believe that there is an couple economical reasons to tag calves.

I feel pretty confident that even without tags, I could tell you which calf belongs to which cow alot of the time, but I guarentee that I could do it alot faster in my herd when the calves have tags than in a herd where they don't. I work a second job and time is money at my place.

I think this is what I like about this site. There is great conversations about things as small as tagging calves or not. There is no right or wrong answer to this question other than what is needed or works on each persons spread.
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:clap:
 
think tags pay off , little faster to pair up when selecting certain age cow sorting from pastures to go the the forest. Record showed how tight a herd can be after a few years as you get a lot of grand daughters and on down that go back to one good cow.
we tag our ewes and tagged lambs for awhile,it really help increase our lambing percentage keeping twin lambs from twin moms.
 
Just wanted to thank everyone for the replies. This is probably the best mannered forum that I've ever seen on the internet.

I'm thinking that I'll tag again this year at birth and band the bulls at the same time. Last year after we missed catching a few calves, we decided to just let the rest of them calve, and then tag them all later and castrate at the same time. While it was nice not to try to tag the calves each morning, I remembered whole I was cutting those steers how nice the previous year was when I'd caught them all at birth with a tag and band. It's nice not have to bring them all through the chute, and it doesn't look like there is much difference between the banded-at-birth calves versus those we cut at 7 months.

Thanks again for everyone's advice.
 
Houston said:
Just wanted to thank everyone for the replies. This is probably the best mannered forum that I've ever seen on the internet.

I'm thinking that I'll tag again this year at birth and band the bulls at the same time. Last year after we missed catching a few calves, we decided to just let the rest of them calve, and then tag them all later and castrate at the same time. While it was nice not to try to tag the calves each morning, I remembered whole I was cutting those steers how nice the previous year was when I'd caught them all at birth with a tag and band. It's nice not have to bring them all through the chute, and it doesn't look like there is much difference between the banded-at-birth calves versus those we cut at 7 months.

Thanks again for everyone's advice.
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yea but now you brrouight up band vs knife :D :D :shock:
 

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