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Eastern NE KS | Our cow ID's are packed with info that some folks may feel is overkill. The other extreme is an ID that is unique within your herd but doesn't carry any added information.
We have a letter and numbered cow family for mama cows. Most cows have a 4 digit id, 2 letters and 2 numbers. Registered Angus have letters first and numbers last. Commercial cows have numbers first and letters last. Looking at the cow phenotype is associated with the cow family AND vice versa. As a breeder, I highly value this mental association. It impacts future mating decisions.
The letter identifies the cow's birth year. The second (interior) letter identifies her dam's birth year. The number identifies the cow family, so this allows 100 cow families.
Calves are tagged at birth matching the mother's tag id. However, the calf tag color identifies the sire or sire group.
This system has been in use for 50 years. Over the last 13 years I replaced my pocket calving book with a relational database I built for my android phone. It is cool because I can look at any animal and review an extreme multi generation pedigree and performance data. This means the cow family on the tag is less impactful today than it once was. All cattle records from the last 13+ years are in my pocket and not locked in my office out of reach. | |
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Tagging Talk
