Northern Minnesota | Red Paint - 6/26/2022 15:49 If you could buy an ear tag that was guaranteed to both stay legible and intact, and actually did, what would that be worth? How long would you need it to last in your particular setting? I work with various polymer materials and there are some that could perform well in this application, it’s just a matter of if they would be economical. In a sense, I think this is a "created" issue by the current tag producers. I switched to Z tags when they first were on the market. Never a torn ear. Use the right ink and always legible. And hardly ever lost a tag. (Some on my old cows with those tags still carrying the original.)
Now I am constantly replacing lost tags. Still (thank goodness) no torn ears. But the plastic BREAKS. Many barely make it six months. And out of frustration have switched to TWO tags per cow. The industry motto, imo: "Use cheap crappy plastic. Sell more tags. Make more money!" |