Age Verified Calves

[kato]

Well, it's almost that time of year again. Calves are looking good, pastures are holding out, and soon the run will begin again.

Has anyone here figured out how to actually get a couple of extra bucks out of age verified calves????

[grassfarmer]

Print off age verification certificates, take them to the auction and make sure the auctioneer announces they are age verified. Then sit back and watch the extra dollars come in.

[kato]

Hope so! I'm going to check the local marts to see if anyone is planning any age verified sales too.

Around here they are laying some very severe discounts on calves that have even the slightest indication of age on them. They are saying that the feedlots just don't want them if there's any risk at all of them not being over age at slaughter.

[cswilson]

They had a pretty salty yearling sale here on Monday-I can't see them being to worried about getting a weaned calf done on time-thirty months is a pretty old oxen when you think about it.

[DiamondSCattleCo]

What I can't figure out is that 30 months is the age cutoff, yet when they mouth the cattle at the barn, anything with four big ones gets discounted heavily. Early maturing cattle can have 4 big ones by 20 months of age.

Rod

[grassfarmer]

I don't know why they implemented mouthing for OTMs in North America -lack of other ideas I suppose. It was certainly widely discredited in the UK where they used it first to deal with BSE related age issues. I know of cattle there that were 4 tooth at 17-18 months. One guy got caught with a whole bunch of them - small early maturing types that had been treated really tough for most of their lives.

[Bez]

Not worth the effort.

TEST and it all goes away.

Close the Yankee border and OWN the rest of the world.

Bez