May 5, 2000

There’s been a lot of talk about electronic identification tags for cattle over the past few years, but recent industry developments are causing many producers and feeders to give EIDs more than mere lip service. What began as a ripple may well be the wave of the future.

"We’ve been using EIDs for about two years," says Robert Carter, owner of C-Bar Feedyard in Lubbock, a 17,000-head feedyard which he describes as a "vertically integrated cooperative." "It has impacted almost every aspect of our feedyard operation, starting with the way that we now manage cattle as individuals, instead of just pens and groups, because we have individual information. Instead of having group implant regimes, we bring a pen up and, based on what each one weighs that day, we determine what implant schedules are appropriate and tag such that we can identify that.

"In the past, we overfed and underfed some as a group," he continues. "We’re trying to eliminate overfeeding any animal. The system’s not perfect, but much more accurate. We’ve really lowered the amount of back fat that we’re hauling around on trucks and delivering to packing plants. We probably average between 70 and 80 percent yield grades 1 and 2 now."

Carter’s goal is to consistently produce a branded product guaranteed to be tender.

"We’re taking information that producers give us which includes, in some cases, actually the sire and dam, but in most cases only sire groups or dam groups, which is still pretty meaningful. I’m talking about ranches that would have perhaps 200 cows that were very much alike and a certain set of bulls very much alike. Calves from that group are identified in some way meaningful to the producer. We get individual feedyard performance and individual carcass data. If he’s doing a good job, in most cases, what it helps people do is decide whether their match of bull and cows produce a desirable carcass," Carter explains.

Carter says DNA information on a bull, tied into the tag, can effect a positive change in a producer’s herd in just one to two years.

"I don’t think you need to find the good bulls. You need to find the one bad one and get rid of it, and the EID system can help you do that. Everything moves electronically, and it is quick. That has been one of the things that’s been a problem is that the individual people controlling genetics have no idea what they have. This is a way of moving that information very quickly from one end of the production spectrum to the other," he says.

The information is also of some value to those who buy cattle from salebarns. Preconditioned cattle Carter gathers from salebarns are identified by kind—broad general groups, as far as genetics and frame score—and tracked via a database.

"It allows us to make decisions about what we want and don’t want. We can enter weights two or three times, so that we can track feedlot performance. And we can gather that information on computer. You can even use a digital photo by animal and tie that to the tag, so there are some real proprietary-type benefits," Carter notes.

Obviously, tightly-controlled genetics resulting in a consistent product will be much more valuable than using a shotgun approach. Thus, use of EIDs may ultimately lead to a two-tiered beef market. It’s hard for producers with small herds to justify the expense of electronic identification. All the more reason to cooperate with fellow cattlemen, says Carter.

"One of the bright sides is that producers can band together and use systems like this to identify the quality of what they’re producing and make the necessary changes to improve their herds. We have a co-op of about 15 farmers in Louisiana, small producers, who together can deliver truckloads of cattle. They can see the benefits. There are some good things that even small producers can do, as long as you keep your thinking caps on, like buying and sharing really good bulls," he suggests.

Tom Woodward, owner of Broseco Ranches, a commercial cow/calf operation near Omaha, Tex., has fed and retained ownership of cattle for a number of years. Woodward uses a three-breed rotational system—Red Angus, Simbrah, and Braunvieh cattle with "a little Brahman influence." His breeding program involves 5,000 to 6,000 cows annually. Resulting calves typically get EIDs at the time of weaning.

"Up until now, you could only get feedlot performance if you were involved in Ranch-to-Rail or had feed-dependent cattle," says Woodward. "The EID does give us the ability, once it is working, to tag a calf at weaning time, and it goes wherever and eventually that information comes back to you. For example, at a feedlot, they can catch an in-weight on that calf, take the hot carcass weight at the packer level, and you’re able to calculate the average gain. That’s good information to know, but the feedlot has to be geared up to catch the in-weight. It really gives you the opportunity to catch performance information, as well as carcass information, and tie those two together to make genetic management decisions and move in the direction it needs to go."

Woodward, who is part of a ranchers’ alliance, began using EID tags about three or four years ago. AgInfo- Link in Austin, helped the group develop the prototype and software for their data management system.

"The EID tag was ISO compatible. AllFlex was making that tag, and also made a scanner so the tags could be scanned at the ranch and feedlot level," Woodward recalls.

Ideally, the alliance wanted a system where they could scan the EID number, get it into the system, and enter data, such as weaning weight, genetic description, animal health treatments, when implanted, etc.

At the feedlot level, the tag could be read, a technician could go into the AgInfoLink database, pull up data, and enter what was done to the animal in the feedyard before sending it through the feeding system.

When the animal got to the packer, in theory, they would read the EID tag number and tie carcass data with it and send to AgInfoLink, where it could be managed and retrieved and used by people in the alliance.

"It’s prudent to understand that it never worked as smoothly as we envisioned. We had problems at all three levels—data entry at the ranch, recovery of data at the feedlot, and trouble getting data through the packing plant," he reports. "Any time you’re kind of out front trying to use new technology, there are going to be some challenges to overcome."

First, says Woodward, it costs a lot of money for the packing house to gear up for electronic identification. And, as they soon learned, it’s not so easy keeping up with the animal, given the logistics of a packing house.

"Packers are not in the data management business. They have to tie that EID number to a trolley number. When it’s on rail, and they pull the hide and the ears come off, that number has got to be married to the trolley that animal came off of. Until you can do that, it’s pretty ‘hulley gulley.’ Even for those who are set up for it, you’re adding an extra step in there. The packer has to pull one out of the system—what they call the rail-outs. Once that happens, they’ve lost their sequence on trolleys, so the sequence gets broken," he explains. "The packers are going up the learning curve, making progress. I think, in fairly short order, we’re going to be at that point."

Then there’s the problem of data distribution. A good question is, where does the data collected by those packers with the capability to tie the carcass and EID together go?

"You’ve got to be part of some alliance or group that has a special arrangement with the packer or have access to some kind of clearinghouse for that data. That’s where it starts coming together. And believe me, it’s going to take effort on the part of that alliance to work with the packer and get a commitment," says Woodward. "I was glad to see TSCRA (Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association is studying a Beef Quality Management System) take that step. If you are a TSCRA member who’s got a few calves and want to get information, but you don’t have enough to feed a pen, TSCRA can set up a data management system (in the future), sort the EID number out, and if you don’t have a reader at your ranch, you can get the tags from a central source. If they send you 10 tags to put in your calves, they already know what numbers are on those tags. When cattle are killed, the packer downloads and sends that data back to TSCRA who, in turn, can send it back to the producer."

Data management for cattle producers using electronic identification is becoming a big business, says Woodward.