I rode along with Joe Saturday morning to tag some fall calves.
It was a gorgeous fall morning. The trees were vibrant, the grass was lush green, and the air was crisp. It was one of those days you just have to stop and thank God for.
Joe is the main calf-tagger in the family, and he kindly let me ride along and take pictures of the process.
First, Joe finds a new baby. Then he walks up and ropes it.
Next, he fills out a tag with the calf’s number in the middle (it starts with an “8”) and the momma’s number on the bottom.
Then Joe tags the calf…
And gives him two shots.
Next, Joe weighs the calf by wrapping a cinch around his belly…
And lifting him off the ground.
Then he lets the baby go,
And records the information in his book. As we are a registered operation, we have to keep a record of the birth date, birth weight, sire, dam, and sex of each calf born.
This process goes on until he gets all the calves tagged that were born that day. It only takes about three minutes a calf, but when we’re having lots of babies every day, it can be an all-morning chore.
But it’s a rewarding chore.
And this would typically be the way Joe’s mornings go– pretty simple and straightforward.
However, on this particular morning, I got to witness something Joe said had never happened to him in the thousands of head he had tagged.
He accidentally roped the momma’s foot. I’m not sure how this happened, but I think he was coiling up his rope and the cow stepped in his loop. Oh. No.
I couldn’t help but laugh. I know Joe was glad I was along to witness the whole thing, and the fact that I had my camera was even better!
Now bless this momma’s heart, she was about as sweet as she could be. She stood there and tolerated the whole thing and even let Joe get close enough he could almost reach down and remove the rope. But at the last second, she walked away.
I told Joe he might as well kiss that rope goodbye. (I’m so helpful.)
But after about 5 minutes of fishing and flipping slack in the rope, she walked out of it. Whew!
So there you have it– how we tag calves on the Werner Ranch. (Minus the whole roping-the-cow thing. There’s never a dull moment.)
Thanks for coming along. Hope you have a great day!