“We've received premiums for our cattle every year we've used electronic ID (EID) tags,” says Roger Koberstein of Koberstein Farms at Holyoke, CO. In fact, compared to same-class, same-weight cattle selling in the same region at the same time, his calves have garnered $5-$15/cwt. since 2004.

The premiums stem largely from value-added programs that Koberstein calves qualify for, verified with EID: Preconditioned, Japanese export, Certified Angus Beef and Natural.

That's why Koberstein began using EID tags. When Japan established the age limit on export-eligible cattle in the wake of BSE, rather than fuss over logic and politics, Koberstein exploited the opportunity to qualify his cattle for the new export requirements via EID and enrollment in a third-party source and age verification program.

That's also why he's never confused EID with a standardized national animal ID program.

“I always considered the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) to be an animal health program, which it is,” Koberstein says. “The EID tags that can be used for NAIS are management tools. Since I started using them, I've tried to milk every potential from them I can think of.”

It's a lengthy list that includes grazing, breeding and calving management; marketing; junior livestock shows; and agricultural advocacy.

Adding net return

The first year Koberstein used EID to make calves eligible for export to Japan, he tagged only the calves using passive EID tags. Passive tags contain no battery and can only be read from short distances think inches. Armed with a laptop computer, a wand that reads the passive electronic tag and primitive software, he also used the EID to build a database that made loading and shipping easier.

At the same time, as beef superintendent for Phillips County Fair, Koberstein led the charge to use passive EID in conjunction with retinal imaging to identify and verify junior livestock exhibits. He now helps six other county fairs use the technology, too.

By the next year, Koberstein began seeing the potential for tagging his cows and bulls electronically.

All his commercial cows are bred once artificially. Koberstein can easily input breeding information and dates for each cow with a scan of the ear tag and a couple of clicks on the computer. He added a barcode reader that same year to scan the barcodes from vaccine and therapeutic packages to accompany each calf's animal health record.

“EID removes the human error. You don't have to worry about someone misreading a number,” Koberstein says.

When Koberstein tagged his cows with active EID, he also could obtain quick and accurate pasture inventories. Active tags contain a battery; the ones he uses can be read from up to a half-mile away. In fact, when some of his cows pushed through a fence during a western Nebraska blizzard in October, Koberstein immediately knew which cows were missing and had a description of them.

Koberstein tests all cows and calves for persistent infection with bovine viral diarrhea (PI-BVD). By adding a small wireless printer, he can print labels for the samples as they're collected.

This year, Koberstein added weather stations and a data logger, which, in simple terms, tracks the position and movement of the long-range active tags in his cows.

“If you can tell where cattle are spending most of their time in a pasture, you can get a better feel for when pastures need to be rotated,” Koberstein says. “Around here we typically rotate pastures based on days. But, based on moisture and grazing patterns, we might be able to graze more days in a pasture or see that we need to rotate them sooner.”

Coupling cattle movement and weather data, Koberstein is building a model that will tell him how much pasture how many grazing days he should have based on the amount of moisture received, compared to historic data.

Based on individual animal movement, Koberstein can also tell which and when cows are in heat, and identify which bull bred which cow. For that matter he can monitor bull libido.

With the active, long-range EID tags in his cows, come calving time, Koberstein can identify cows without disturbing them. Via a handheld computer, he quickly can see if a cow has any history of calving problems.

Forging relationships

In some ways, all this pales in comparison to how Koberstein is utilizing EID to help consumers understand more about the beef he produces.

A few years ago, Koberstein began a branded-beef business with a twist. If you want Colorado Natural Best Beef, team up with as many neighbors as you want, but the order is for one carcass, period.

“It was born with the idea of adding value to the cattle that don't meet our load-lot specifications,” Koberstein explains. In recent years, he's marketed cattle via Superior Video in the summer for fall delivery. Any of those later-calving, lighter or frozen-eared types go into the branded program.

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