Our Cow/ Calf Tagging System

Posted By: Jesse Williams

I have had a lot of questions about how we structure our cow/calf management tags in our herd, as I have posted a few pictures of making tags and our DIY Tag Board, that seemed to confuse people. This leads me to believe we must be doing things rather different than anyone else (which could be a good or a bad thing) and so I thought I would take a few minutes to share what we do and why. I would LOVE to hear how you do management tags on your operation because there is always room for improvement!

The International Standard

We do follow the international tag lettering system for our COWS. This handy dandy little system gives your cows a letter for their tag that corresponds with the year they were born. This is super convenient when buying cows at the auction mart- IF (and I stress, IF) the previous owner follows that same international standard. I am learning more every day that there are less and less people following it, which I always ask myself 'Why not?'. If you have any insight into that, please let me know!

This shows the international letter system & its corresponding year.

*Note that I, O, Q and V are not used.

A1969      U1986       N2003
B1970      W1987      P2004
C1971      X1988       R2005
D1972      Y1989       S2006
E1973      Z1990       T 2007
F1974      A1991        U2008
G1975     B1992        W2009
H1976     C1993        X2010
J1977      D1994        Y2011
K1978     E1995         Z2012
L1979      F1996         A2013
M1980     G1997        B2014
N1981     H1998        C2015
P1982     J1999         D2016 (this year's calves!)
R1983     K2000        E2017
S1984     L2001        F2018
T1985     M2002       G2019

Making new tags for the cows born in 2014 (this year's first calvers). These tags will be with them (hopefully!) their entire time on our ranch.

Cow Tags

As mentioned above, we give all cows their letter corresponding to their year of birth, followed by a management number. We simply started at 100 when we began our herd. This is because we have very similar cows to our family members, who we also sometimes run in the same pastures or management groups. By starting all our numbers in the 100's, (their's start in the single digits), we can easily identify whose cow is whose.

We also use a different colored tag for every year of birth. This is simply another aid to allow us to identify a cow at a quick glance. Sometimes you may only be able to see the number on the tag because of long hair, but if its orange you know that is likely a 'B' cow, for example. It is probably over kill (and does make for a LOT of extra tags always hanging around in every color) but it does work well for us.

This calf (A-117) received the same tag as his dam. You can see we also write the management number on the back of the tags at the bottom (see dam's ear), to increase ease of identification

The boys tagging and checking the health of a newborn calf, while mamma watches.

Calf Tags

This is where I think we differ. We tag our calves within 48 hours of birth. Because we cull cows for poor behavior we generally have a very tame herd that allows us to grab their calf and insert the appropriate tags while the mamma cow watches. Of course there are always those cows that snap after birth, so while it generally works well there is always some risk involved.

We give our calves their mandatory CCIA RFID tags in one ear (left) and their management tag in their right ear. We however don't give them the letter that corresponds with their year of birth (this year would be D's). Instead, we give them the same management tag as their mammas. This allows us to always know which calf belongs to which cow, if they are missing a calf, if that calf has adopted a new mother, etc. And because we tag them ASAP after birth, we always know which pairs go together.

Reusing Tags & Saving Money

In order to save a bit of money we reuse the same calf tags every single year. At weaning we cut the button off the back of each tag, saving the tag for the next calf crop. We do this when the calves are in the chute ready to load onto the liner to the auction mart. We simply lean over the chute with a tag cutter and remove the tags. Now this is easier said than done and I'll be the first to admit it. In previous years we had an old rickety chute that had bars across the top. Those bars were just in the right spot to bonk your head when you weren't paying attention. We do have a better chute now, but it is still somewhat inconvenient and been a topic of discussion in our house for some time. I guess the cheap side of us won over because we are still doing it!

After weaning, we take the tags in the house, wash them in soapy water to remove any old dirt and use a knife or pen to pop out what's left of the old button. We then use a tag pen to trace over the existing letter and number to make sure it is vibrant and readable for the next year.

Economics on reusing tags:
*These are the actual costs of tags and buttons we purchased in 2015. Tax not included.

Large Allflex 2 piece tags/buttons: $30.44/ 25 tags & buttons ($1.22/head)
Allflex buttons: $14.59/ 25 buttons ($0.58/head)
Savings: $15.85/ 25 head ($0.63/head)

For a herd that produces 100 head of calves continuously, you would be saving $63.40 per year (or $0.63/head). Now that doesn't sound much, and it really isn't, but 63 bucks is 63 bucks in my opinion. My father in law loves to say that when you are young, you trade work to save money, and when you are old you trade money to save work. Clay and I are still young so I think we will continue to take the extra few minutes to remove tags, wash them and reuse them each year, at least for now.

Note: We have a very low tag loss rate in calves. In 100 head, we might lose one per year, if that.

Pros/Cons of Our Tagging System

This yearling got it's old tag removed when she became a permanent part of our herd. The A corresponds to her year of birth in 2013.

While this is the way the hubs' family has been doing it for years, my number one concern when I was introduced to it was the increase in time/work to tag replacements twice, plus the stress of two tagging steps for replacements, or the removal of the tags for calves going to market. They have to be tagged at some point in their life, but the second tagging for replacements is usually done in the chute when the heifers are receiving annual vaccinations. And because we use the same hole that their original tag was in, I think the stress is fairly limited.

For the calves being sold to market, I think it would be fair to say there is some stress on weaning day and adding an additional few minutes in the chute trying to wrangle a tag out of their ear likely adds to it. However, I don't know how much stress or how much shrink that would equate to, and if it would be enough to cancel out the savings from reusing tags.

The other option I see a lot of producers use is to tag at branding rather than at birth. I am not particularly fond of this method just because it is hard enough to know which calf goes with which mother when they have corresponding tags. Without tags for a few months before branding would always make me worry I have the wrong calve/cows matched up. This would wreak havoc on my record keeping system as my data would no longer be reliable. If a cow lost her calf and adopted another (which most certainly happens), and I use the adopted calf's data as that cow's progeny, I could have very skewed results as to the genetic characteristics that mother throws.  

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At the end of the day, this is how we've been using management tags in our herd. It may or may not work for you herd but we sure would love to hear how your system might differ. Leave a comment or send us an email!