how do you weigh your calves?

just wondering how everyone weighed their calves to get their bw's....what kind of scales you use? 

We use a digital scale.

I can usually guess fairly close

I use a mechanical scale. I attach it to a fulcrum bar with a hook in the end. Plant one end in the ground push up the other end with scale attached. Calf in sling. I can tag,weigh, tattoo in about 50 seconds if I hit a good lick.

When my back is not out I use a mechanical scale.  Otherwise, a weigh tape.  It is a lot more accurate than a guess.

most people don't weigh their calves

weigh tape...  is very accurate...  wieghed a group of feeders that we shipped, and was 10 lbs off on the grouup... 

Well, we started out using a bathroom scale. Then went to an old beam scale with a crate on it. Now, we have a single animal digital scale so we just put it in the barn at calving, set a piece of plywood on it and use it. Just toss the calf on it and it takes about 30 seconds.

I eyeball it  8)

If you want in the game , play the rules , I've got customers if they heard you were using a tape or guessing , would drive right by yourplace, there business men, they expect you to weigh those calves at the best of your ability, when you sell steers you cut them don't you .  I have a four wheeler that we calve mostly with or a pickup with a ball on it, bought a calf carrier an had a digital scales put on it, also bought a cheap plastic tool box to put digital readout box in, you do need to lift the calf up on scales , but once there you have it made , weigh'm, tag'm ,give shots, an dehorn if needed .If you don't have the time to do this job right , your success in this business will be limited .... Fred Ranch

zach said:

I eyeball it  8)

Click to expand...

Yeah!!!

subtract 20 pounds.

Like aj we have a spring loaded scale with a sling attached that we hang from the push bar

We have digital scales.

Hanging with a sling.  The scale is hooked to a pipe so when the calf is in the sling you tip the pipe up vertical to lift the calf.  Similar to the fulcrum method mentioned earlier I'm sure.
what the scale says it what gets written down is what gets turned in to the association.  Playing with the birth eights may work for some, but we still sell some bulls to commercial cow calf guys and nothing runs your reputation faster than big dead calves out of your bull.
<cowboy>

(clapping)

We used the spring scale for4-5 years- the only thing with that is that our spring scale if not handled right you could get incorrect readings, it would make weight bigger than it should be if certain thing happened , if that calf  jumps (ESPECIALLY SOME OF THE BIGGER ONES ) IT WOULD add ten ilbs really easy , we put 5- inch grips on our scal so that every thing was a one piece unit, but you had to press it right in front of your body, an if you lifted it correctly an paid attention it would work , but I had other people doing it an was checking some of them an I couldn't afford the margin of error that was possible with using the spring scale .   An I reweighed some of the calves that I did an even came up with different weights , an did it right in one time period , one right after the other ......    Also with spring scale the way we did it , we then had to wrestle calf down an finish working them, now part of this is I'm over sixty an don't move  like I use to , when I was younger this didn't seem as big a deal, but after using the digital scale their was no comparison in the accurracey , the digital gets the weight an locks in on that number , the calf don't fight once in the carrier an it really don't matter on the digital cause one it gets the weight no movement bothers it.   The  other way I just was never really comfortable about the weights, an I don't think it UNDER   weighed any , but I'm not sure how many it  over weighed ....an selling bulls to customers that use that individual weight to buy my bulls an don't pay much attention to the EPD'S IT IS REAL IMPORTANT ...........  Also I CHECK the scales once a week with a 50 lb. sack of salt , also did the same thing with the spring scales ....

I also think that there are high gravity days and low grativity days. I think people do read scales differently. I still think that if I could develop a minimal gravity room(similar to a cooler) we could as seedstock producers lower our bwts significantly. We would just weigh the baby calves in this room.

(clapping) aj you're on a roll today!

For those of you who use a sling with a fulcrum bar; how do you manage to carry all that and still catch the calf? I have enough problem carrying a bucket  with the scale, sling, ear tag, needle and Bo-Se in one hand and the calf catcher in the other. I'm ok putting the sling on and lifting up to 90 lbs or so but as I get older, I find those 100 pounders are a lot heavier. Thankfully there are very few of them. I will admit there have been times I've put down 105 or 110 as I couldn't lift. (don't feel it misleads buyer too much if I put 110 and it was really 115 as 110 is already too big)