• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

What will M-ID totally Cost????

Help Support Ranchers.net:

A

Anonymous

Guest
Marc Bridges, executive officer of the Montana Department of Livestock, and its former chief brand inspector, began his presentation before the MCA/R-CALF 4th Annual Cattlemen's Day gathering at the Northern Hotel saying he thought the answer was found in three words: "Hot iron brand."

It is the most permanent identification and its use dates from Egyptian society before Christ, he said. No other system of animal marking is as permanent and unalterable.

However, most states do not have brand laws and because cattle are moved in interstate commerce, the federal government's mandates will have to be met if cattlemen are going to sell livestock across state lines.

"Our brands won't be accepted in interstate commerce," he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will require mandatory ID of each animal by 2009. A voluntary program begins next year, and already more that 100,000 head of Montana cattle are ID'd through a computerized ear tag system. The tags are registered to an individual location and are stored in a computer at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Bridges said producers are not inclined to take part in the program unless doing so puts money in their pocket. He estimated that 3,000 ranches will be in the computer by 2006.

The ear tags do not need to be attached until the animals move to the first point of sale in interstate commerce, he said.

Bridges said mandatory ID constitutes an unfunded mandate and it will cost $10 to $15 a head. Some marketing firms -- feeders and packers -- are requiring the registration now and are paying premiums for animals that are. It was suggested from the audience of about 75 persons that whoever is requesting or requiring the information, should pay for it.

In addition to the cost, there are concerns about confidentiality and privacy of the computerized information. Also, there is general opposition to this information being held and controlled by the federal government.

"Those battles, states rights and privacy, are to come," Bridges said.

Checking those cattle at auction yards would incur another cost, Bridges said.

As an example, he said that during the week of the Northern International Livestock Exposition, about 35,000 head of cattle went through Billings' two cattle rings.

Checking the brand inspection records, Bridges said those cattle came from 44 of Montana's 56 counties. They went to 30 counties and 14 states.

He said the board of livestock does not have the money to provide each brand inspector with a computerized reader to individually ID those animals.
 
No other system of animal marking is as permanent and unalterable.
"Yes thats right ,a brand or tattoo are permenent."

However, most states do not have brand laws and because cattle are moved in interstate commerce, the federal government's mandates will have to be met if cattlemen are going to sell livestock across state lines.

"Our brands won't be accepted in interstate commerce," he said.

Yes that's true, the brands or tatoos will be accepted as one of many other forms to ID an animal.The EU. is moving to the bolus in 2007 as too many tags are lost over a period of years. You cannot steal or lose a bolus as alot of countrys use them.
The problem with most databases in the world is that they cannot handle more than one ID at a time and still displayed the data on one screen.Only www.scoringag.com does this in real time within 3 seconds.
 
Marc Bridges, executive officer of the Montana Department of Livestock, and its former chief brand inspector, began his presentation before the MCA/R-CALF 4th Annual Cattlemen's Day gathering at the Northern Hotel saying he thought the answer was found in three words: "Hot iron brand."

It is the most permanent identification and its use dates from Egyptian society before Christ, he said. No other system of animal marking is as permanent and unalterable


I thought Sandhusker said Egypt did have as high of standards as the US.
 
I said that Egypt's requirements for importing from BSE positive counrties is higher than the US's.
 
Joplin Stockyards comments,
We also had our first
value-added sale on
October 27th. These cattle
were $3 to $10 higher per Hwt.
than the regular Monday
sale. For those of you
who participated, this
sale paid big rewards.
The next Value-Added
sale will be November
17.
The calf market is getting
a little cheaper
every week. This time of
year, the supply of
calves nation wide,
health, and dry weather
conditions drive the calf
market down. The buyers
can't handle the
amount of fat calves
coming from all over the
U.S.
Bridges said mandatory ID constitutes an unfunded mandate and it will cost $10 to $15 a head. Wrong
$3.65 is the real cost per head which includes tag plus labor plus database.

Some marketing firms -- feeders and packers -- are requiring the registration now and are paying premiums for animals that are recorded in a database such as ours and sold through www.cattlerange.com .
 
STAFF said:
Bridges said mandatory ID constitutes an unfunded mandate and it will cost $10 to $15 a head. Wrong
$3.65 is the real cost per head which includes tag plus labor plus database.

From what I've seen the bolus's are $4.00 to $10.00 each just for them....

Staff- what is going to be the cost to hire, train, equip and employ the personell across the country that will be needed to record these movements and transfers? Someone has to input these movements and ownership changes into the computer database...Like Bridges commented about- the cost of buying handheld computerized readers for the brand inspectors...I've seen prices from $900 to $5000 on them....Montana alone has over 200 brand inspectors- 15 in our county alone...Even a cheapy wand at $1000 would put the cost to the state at $200,000....


How many millions $ will developing this infrastucture cost the US cattle producers? I think this is where Bridges is coming up with the $10-15 a head figure (which personally I think will end up being about twice as much).....A previous figure put out by Montana State University was $8-10, but now they are finding their are more problems and hidden costs than originally perceived....
 
From what I've seen the bolus's are $4.00 to $10.00 each just for them.

That is true,$3.80 for the sheep,goat bolus and $4.80 for cattle and elk. But you have to remember ,when you lose one tag and you have to replace it ,thus you have bought a bolus an thats never lost or can be cut out.

Staff- what is going to be the cost to hire, train, equip and employ the personell across the country that will be needed to record these movements and transfers? Not much as our system uses tcp-ip real time and runs by itself.Just like the automatic doors at the local stores.Does anyone stand there and open them? NO ,You get infront of the door and it opens itself and when you have finished walking through, they close.


Someone has to input these movements and ownership changes into the computer database.. Its Automatic,,,
All of these data movements and owership changes happen from the reader an database working together as a unit.Do you remember when we had telephone operators 30 years ago.Wasn't automated. We all use cellphones and their are no operators anymore.

.Like Bridges commented about- the cost of buying handheld computerized readers for the brand inspectors...I've seen prices from $900 to $5000 on them....We have run blue tooth readers at the ID show in Chicago that cost $425 bucks and will work with a Bluetooth cellphone or Wireless PDA.

Montana alone has over 200 brand inspectors- 15 in our county alone...Even a cheapy wand at $1000 would put the cost to the state at $200,000....Our system would make their life a lot less troublesome and those wands just don't cost that much anymore.


How many millions $ will developing this infrastucture cost the US cattle producers? Shouldn't be anymore costs unless they want to develope our system over again .


I think this is where Bridges is coming up with the $10-15 a head figure (which personally I think will end up being about twice as much)....We had another group in South America come up with a stupid list of high costs and we shot them them down.


.A previous figure put out by Montana State University was $8-10, but now they are finding their are more problems and hidden costs than originally perceived....
Reason is the profit for the college is the large amount of grants they receive and there's is a finenite list of equipment that will work and the rest of the equipment is crap.The Destron readers were junk even before the universitys got them,alot of states were fooled on what works and what doesn't.Kinda like ,you guess if its good or not!
 
We have run blue tooth readers at the ID show in Chicago that cost $425 bucks and will work with a Bluetooth cellphone or Wireless PDA.
------------

Must have better cell phone coverage in Chicago than they do in half of this state........First we'd need cell phone access.....
 
Good questions & answers Oldtimer & Staff.
Can these ID's be put in by anyone when working cattle same as an ear tag or do you need a rep there doing it? (As you can see, I know very little about this) The reason I ask, I read a story from a rancher in an ag-paper saying the cost was much more during an ID'ing. As I got further into the story I read where the guy had to round up his cattle (spread everywhere) and figured it cost him $12 per animal to do this. (Had to work with IDing crews schedule)
 
Rancher in an ag-paper saying the cost was much more during an ID'ing.Good Lord,how many more jobs can be stuck to ID cattle.Maybe Tractor oil change can be charged too.Same MO for the packers and grocer's when COOL was to be in .They had to buy their broker a dinner night out and charge it up to the COOL law bookkeeping costs!!!!
 
Fedup Good questions & answers Oldtimer & Staff.
Can these ID's be put in by anyone when working cattle same as an ear tag (Yes and you don't have to put them in until you have them in hand. Works like just puttin a magnet.)

or do you need a rep there doing it? (No) (As you can see, I know very little about this) The reason I ask, I read a story from a rancher in an ag-paper saying the cost was much more during an ID'ing. As I got further into the story I read where the guy had to round up his cattle (spread everywhere) and figured it cost him $12 per animal to do this. (Had to work with IDing crews schedule) (Nobody says that you must tag them or put boluses in unless the animals leave the premises.)Just take your time.
 
STAFF said:
Fedup Good questions & answers Oldtimer & Staff.
Can these ID's be put in by anyone when working cattle same as an ear tag (Yes and you don't have to put them in until you have them in hand. Works like just puttin a magnet.)

or do you need a rep there doing it? (No) (As you can see, I know very little about this) The reason I ask, I read a story from a rancher in an ag-paper saying the cost was much more during an ID'ing. As I got further into the story I read where the guy had to round up his cattle (spread everywhere) and figured it cost him $12 per animal to do this. (Had to work with IDing crews schedule) (Nobody says that you must tag them or put boluses in unless the animals leave the premises.)Just take your time.

STAFF- I get the impression you haven't been around many of these places that gather, wean off, sex, weigh up and ship 750-1000 head in a day.....Ain't no way you will do that with the added job of tagging....

There is no way it will not create a time and labor expense.....
 
Oldtimer,With a 4 man crew in Brazil in Matto Grasso those numbers are small.Since I myself am a cattleman and done Hot Branding,banding,shots and tags + sort in fall roundup settings I know the problems of a cranky cow or two.just kills your numbers for that day.The shot man tags.
 
STAFF said:
The shot man tags.

Many of the shipping corrals don't even have a chute alleyway, let alone a chute- just sort corrals and scale....Also the practice around here has been moving towards giving preconditioning shots at branding time (May and June) to avoid the added labor costs and stress on cattle by handling them a second time....I wonder how many RFID ear tags would be lost between branding and shipping day--80-90% retention on a thousand head would be 100 to 200 tags.....
 
Oldtimer, switching the thought to RFID tag loss's ,it's a rate we see on some brands is even higher but some RFID tag brands are at zero with the male side outside in the middle of the ear.For cows the Bolus is zero loss even after ten years which is the longest time in use.Got to remember that the rest of the world uses mostly boluses because of cattle rustlers.I will agree that the time to tag calves is when preconditioning shots are given and then you know the mama cow for records too.
 
Well Oldtimer you have convinced us. It is absolutely impossible to have an MID system in the US. It costs too much and the US rancher is so poorly equipped it can never happen. :roll:

Americans used to be leaders in the world. What happened? Where did this "it can't be done" attitude come from especially when other countries already have an MID system?
 
Bill said:
Americans used to be leaders in the world. What happened? Where did this "it can't be done" attitude come from especially when other countries already have an MID system?

Bill- it can and will be done- I have no doubt over that.....But I believe it will be at a much higher price than many are portraying- which right now is aimed at going on the producer......Since it is a national security issue, I'm wondering why much more of the cost has not been picked up by the government- much the same as they invested billions into airport and aircraft security after 9/11...I'm not that big a backer of government aid- but I would rather see it spent on such a program than rebuiding some sinkhole like New Orleans........
 
I'm not that big a backer of government aid- but I would rather see it spent on such a program than rebuiding some sinkhole like New Orleans........
gotta agree with you on that one.
 
But I believe it will be at a much higher price than many are portraying-Oldtimer

Yes when you rebuild the wheel you have to get past patents and system requirements.Must be that no one is interested in systems that operate at the speed of commerce thats already built and running in many countries.
 
Americans used to be leaders in the world. What happened?

TOO many ego's get in the way and the status quo wants their cake and to keep eating it too at everyone's else's expense.
 

Latest posts

Top