Weighing cattle

[Duncan MacIntyre]

I notice Ann on the beef price topic saying she is charged £5 to use a weighbridge. I use a weighband produced by Dalton who also make tags etc, and find it to be reasonably accurate,on one occassion used it on Ilsington Bramble when he was at the AI collection centre, there was a 2kg difference. Can't remember the cost of the th ing but it is was under £10, and if looked after would do a lot of "weighings". Useful for getting the dose of wormers etc right too. It just goes tight round behind the shoulders and you can read off the weight or the girth in centimetres, iand another scale for pigs.

Duncan

[Penny]

You are quite right Duncan, that the weighband are cheap and fairly accurate. However, a word of warning to those considering trying them............if you use electric fence tape like myself, then you will find that your dear little dexters disappear at top speed when you try to put a white weighband round them!! I wish they made the bands black with white digits.
Also, unless your steers/ youngsters are used to a lot of handling, a hefty kick can be received when trying to reach for the band from underneath. Best to either use a cattle crush or get them used to the band from a very early age.

[Duncan MacIntyre]

A point very well made, Penny. My selective short memory had allowed me to forget that the last bull we slaughtered in June went away without weighing simply because he was so tricky to handle - which of course was the reason he was going - he was fine otherwise and has left some nice calves. I hadn't thought of the electric tape problem though - I just use a plain wire

Duncan