The Importance of Identifying your Cattle

Cattle theft is becoming more and more common because of the current high prices of cattle. Having a way to identify your cattle may be a key to helping you recover those cattle should something happen while also providing the producer with a way to keep tract of his current herd. According to Shane Gadberry, 41% of small farms of 50 cows or less do not have individual cows identified or have a herd identification. He also went on to tell 61% of operations with less than 50 cows did not identify calves. It also goes on to talk about how branding is starting to becoming popular again because it is a permanent way of identifying your cattle but also requires a lot more labor. Producers must have a certain brand for their operation and it must be registered.

Cow/Calf pair tagged to match

As a producer, these numbers seem extremely high to me and is something producers should be thinking about improving on. Identification can be accomplished in many different ways including plastic ear tags, electronic id tagging, and branding. Most producers in the Midwest tend to stick with plastic ear tags because it is cost efficient and doesn't require much labor. On our farm, we use a tagging where the number of the cow goes first and then the year she was born goes next. For example, if a heifer we kept was born in 2011 and she was the last heifer out of 8 to tag her number would be 811 and this is one way we are able to keep records on how old are cows are getting. Proper tagging of calves can allow a producer to know the dam or even the sire of a certain calf which is great is you are wanting to keep replacement heifers out of a certain cow or bull and can also be used for culling if you see a calf doesn't do well and you want to get rid of his mom. Also having this sure way of being able to identify your cattle could settle any disputes you are having with neighbors who think they own a certain cow or bull when in reality its yours. Overall, producers should have some way of identifying their cattle no matter what the size of their operation is.