Birth weight question

ROAD WARRIOR said:

I simply drop a loop on the calf and pull it up on the horse to weigh and tag it. RW

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Now, you are a TRUE cowboy! Even we use the old John Deere Gator™ to go out and weigh and tag.

ROAD WARRIOR said:

I calve pretty much everything out in the pastures off of horse back. Everything is weighed and tagged as soon as it gets dry enough or I can get to it. If I have a cow thats a little ornery (I've gotten rid of most of them by now) I simply drop a loop on the calf and pull it up on the horse to weigh and tag it. RW

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I'm more afraid of horses than I am of mean mommas  :-\

ROAD WARRIOR said:

I calve pretty much everything out in the pastures off of horse back. Everything is weighed and tagged as soon as it gets dry enough or I can get to it. If I have a cow thats a little ornery (I've gotten rid of most of them by now) I simply drop a loop on the calf and pull it up on the horse to weigh and tag it. RW

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U have weigh bars under the saddle blanket? LOL  What kind of a scale do you use horse back?  I'd like to see a video of that.  Must have an easy going ranch horse!

Tony

Have any of you ever used the heart girth measurement? There have been studies showing that if you measure around the heart girth you can compare to a chart and come pretty close to the birth weight.

I use a spring scale most of the time. I have used the tape that you put around the front foot. Comparing the two I really don't see alot of variation. I have three sets of spring scales that are within 3-4 pounds of each other and the tape also falls right in there if used correctly. A good horse is nearly invaluable to me as a tool. RW

On the calf catching/cow protection part of this thread.

We liked this catcher  http://www.attachmentscjj.com/html/calf-catcher-corral.html    so much we welded one ourselves as we were too cheap to buy one.  We calve in confined yards, so ATV not required.  But protection is.  We did make the area to crawl through over the boom smaller because the first cow tried to come join me....

This was the kids can do it If I am stuck on a plane in Memphis.......

Here is one of the origional pictures

Mark

Here's a picture of the calf catcher that I was talking about. Edit, I see Zach has already provided a link!

Tony

RSC, your pastures must be as smooth as a city lawn to think you could use that.  That's getting a little bit out there.  What happened to a good horse, a rope, and some bravery, rsc.  Put your coyote outfit on and they'll run like heck.

we try to weigh within 6 hours. Usually wait until calf is close to gates & grab. I'm lucky though, we don't have any cows here that will charge you. Farm has some mean ones though.

Red

Update:

So I was able to coax the cow out of the calving pen on Friday night.  (about 24 hours after the calf was born).  The cow had a little less attitude after 24 hours.  Was able to weigh and tag the calf.

The heifer calf tipped the scales at 98.  I really didn't think she was that big.

StillLearning said:

Update:

So I was able to coax the cow out of the calving pen on Friday night.  (about 24 hours after the calf was born).  The cow had a little less attitude after 24 hours.  Was able to weigh and tag the calf.

The heifer calf tipped the scales at 98.  I really didn't think she was that big.

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that's why we we weigh rather than eyeball.

Red