Farming tasks: How do you register your calves?

[Herdwatch]

Hi everyone!

We are very interested in how farmers go about their daily tasks.

In this thread, we would like to find out how you manage to register your calves.
Do you have certain procedures in place, do you register them straight away, or is it something that has a lower priority for you? Have you ever missed a deadline, and what were the consequences?

Over to the TFF collective!

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Currently via the BCMS website (which works very well IMHO).

I print off an Excel chart at the start of the season (from a BCMS download) with a line for each cow and boxes for DoB, Sex, Colour, Eartag, De-Horning and notes then fill it in as they calve. The Eartag box is filled in after each calf is tagged and coloured in after it is registered.

 

[Anonymous...]

As above never had a problem

 

[brigadoon]

I put the tags in - her indoors does the rest

 

[dannewhouse]

write mother + father sex etc on tag box in shed tag calf at roughly 1 day old take pic of tag box, while having breakfast log onto bcms and send for passport, and fill in movement book

 

[Boysground]

Use uniform agri here. Have a white board in parlour office every birth written on here immediately, one of the herdsmen or me enters births onto uniform every day. I just do a double check before they get sent to CTS.

Getting the birth registered is always a top priority, only ever have problems when registering the eartag/ birth has been delayed. I can get quite grumpy if I see a calf without a tag.

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[Princess Pooper]

Birth gets written in diary. Tag number then written in when tagged, written on a bit of paper outside first. Once a week or so I do a computer catch up session for everything herd management and tick it when entered. We use herd management software to talk to CTS. A bit of duplication but we are not a big herd or a tight block. Not missed one yet. We once had a batch of passports lost in the post on issue and CTS will not send a replacement until a period (2 weeks?) after the original despatch date. Given that we sell beef calves at 5 weeks to avoid TB pre-movt testing, it taught us not to leave it too late before registering - obviously we can't sell them if passports not arrived.

 

[Frank-the-Wool]

Use Sumit software which does everything for me. All I have to do is enter the calf against the cow and everything is done, including a reminder to tick to ensure passports are received.

 

[matthew]

Written in birth book as calves born. Date, dam, dam’s tag and sire.
Pedigree column ticked if that needs doing.
Passports done every fortnight.
Last column is ‘passport rec’d and checked’.
Copies taken of all CTS inputs,

 

[Bill dog]

Cows are listed in my pocket diary. When they calf I note tag number, breed, sex, and unassisted/ assisted calving(u/a). This is then copied in duplicate into my calving book with a tick added when claimed via bcms website on my phone, and another tick added when the passport turns up.
Used to use Farmplan, but gave it up as I found it an over complicated Pita !

 

[steveR]

Calf born, Date and cow into notebook
When time allows, Calf tagged
BCMS notified and Paper record made within a couple of hours of tagging.

With only a few sucklers here at present, there is a bit of wriggle room in timings...

Passport received and ticked off in book.

I find BCMS to work really well. The only time I had a glitch on recording the birth/movements was when the site was down some months ago. Picked it up a fortnight later on the BCMS site and gave them a call. All sorted...

 

[Fergieman]

Uniform Agri, enter them on daily and send off once a week.

 

[GTB]

Used to use Agridata software but using the 'free' WLBP / FAWL (Shearwell) program now. Enter the calf's details into the system and press send and Bob's your uncle.

 

[Spartacus]

Using Shearwell nmld, tag calf and apply at the same time whilst still out in the shed. Easy job.

 

[scholland]

Using Shearwell nmld, tag calf and apply at the same time whilst still out in the shed. Easy job.

It is a fantastic app

 

[roscoe erf]

Currently via the BCMS website (which works very well IMHO).

I print off an Excel chart at the start of the season (from a BCMS download) with a line for each cow and boxes for DoB, Sex, Colour, Eartag, De-Horning and notes then fill it in as they calve. The Eartag box is filled in after each calf is tagged and coloured in after it is registered.

View attachment 649652

I use the dart board method

 

[Lovegoodstock]

God all the posts of everyone so good above make me feel bad!!! Feb , march and april always a push with majority of cows calving and 1300 sheep lambing, dehorning and tagging and moving pairs to wherever is always a push, always wrote calf number down in "book" with d.o.b sex and mother and breed, being on 3 sites, although close together, id always write some details in a different notebook, on inside of box of tags etc, then was missing or lost when come registering so a chore to read tags in shed or field to rectify problem, simply now have a printed list of consecutive calf numbers, in spreadsheet format, with space for d.o.b sex mums no breed and "comments". tick when sent via summit programme. It is very simple but can be an issue depending on your stock numbers and staff

 

[rob74]

I have used your app this spring for registering and for me it has been brilliant. Cow calves, enter details in crew on phone app, wait a few days to see if calf is gonna be ok and then press button to register and add to herd. But.......I only have a small herd, i pestered a 300+ herd to buy your app and the problem they found was as each calf had to be registered individually via the app with bcms, it was actually easier to use cts site to register the calves in a batch. If you could batch register calves it would be perfect.

 

[Samcowman]

We have a note book with a column for cows number, calf number, date, sex, colour of calf ( this is really useful when looking for a calf in a bunch), location (we calve at 2 sites) and finally notes (grumpy cow, pulled etc).
Then daily put them on Sum It and send off to bcms about once a week. Sum It is good as it automatically allocates the sire to the calf because when the cows go to the bull it gets put on Sum it

 

[Whitepeak]

When a calf is born dad will write it in his diary: sex, dam, sire and assign tag no and name if pedigree. I'll put the same info into the herd register. We'll then tag the calf. Dad registers the calf on BCMS, usually the same day, and writes PP in his diary next to that calf to say he's applied for the passport.
I am tempted to use a phone app to do all this but dad likes to do them himself.