You need to use 3 different coloured ear tags:
- Blue tag – VikingHolstein
- Orange tag – VikingRed
- Yellow tag – VikingJersey
Maintaining the correct rotation of breeds is easy
Here are some examples of the possible mating and tagging with different breeds:
- A purebred Holstein cow is mated with a VikingRed sire. The heifer born should be marked with a yellow tag to indicate that it should always be mated with a VikingJersey sire to maintain the three breeds in her offspring. Her offspring are then tagged with blue tag to always be mated with VikingHolstein (reverting back to the original breed what you started with), and their offspring tagged with an orange ear tag to always be mated with VikingRed (second breed used originally) and the next generation should be then mated back to VikingJersey (third used breed) and the rotation carries on with the three breeds, in the same order, for future generations.
- A purebred Jersey cow is mated with a VikingRed sire. The heifer born should be marked with a blue tag to indicate that it should always be mated with a VikingHolstein sire to maintain the three breeds in her offspring. Her offspring are then tagged with yellow tag to always be mated with VikingJersey (reverting back to the original breed what you started with), and their offspring tagged with an orange ear tag to always be mated with VikingRed (second breed used originally) and the next generation should be then mated back to VikingHolstein (third used breed) and the rotation carries on with the three breeds, in the same order, for future generations.
- A purebred Red cow is mated with a VikingHolstein sire. The heifer born should be marked with a yellow tag to indicate that it should always be mated with a VikingJersey sire to maintain the three breeds in her offspring. Her offspring are then tagged with an orange tag to always be mated with VikingRed (reverting back to the original breed what you started with), and their offspring tagged with blue ear tag to always be mated with VikingHolstein (second breed used originally) and the next generation should be then mated back to VikingJersey (third used breed) and the rotation carries on with the three breeds, in the same order, for future generations.
- Jersey x Holstein cross cow is mated with a VikingRed sire. The born heifer calf is now carrying the three breeds. The future mating should be then done with the original breed in the mix, which in this case in Holstein. Put a blue tag in its ear, so that for the rest of her life you know she needs to be mated to a VikingHolstein sire. If the original breed used was Jersey (Jersey x Holstein cross), then the calf would get a yellow ear tag and would be mated to a VikingJersey sire.
Tagging
Simply tag the heifer calves with the coloured tag that identifies the breed she needs to be mated to. No matter who is managing and mating your cows at any time, they will know what breed of sire to mate with the cow to because of the tag colour.
The brighter coloured tags are used so the cow ID numbers you write on the tag with a permanent black marker are easy to read.
Alternative tagging method: Some farmers (usually large herds) have only the one coloured tag already pre-printed with ID numbers ready for the rush of heifer calves. This is also easy to work with as you just write a H (=VikingHolstein) J (=VikingJersey) or R (=VikingRed) after the ID Number with the permanent marker to show which breed she needs to be joined to in the rotation.
