The Tale of the Tape

We've always wanted to weigh our cows, but don't have a scale large enough to weigh an animal bordering on a thousand pounds.  Fortunately, you don't need a heavy-duty scale.  They make a Weigh Tape for Dairy Cows and Tricia purchased one for us for only $4.95.  It is not as accurate as putting your animals on a scale. It is merely an estimate.  But an estimate is good enough for us.

Weighing them gives you good data that you can use to see if your animals are average size for their age, helps you to compute feed amounts and drug dosages, and allows you to determine when they are ready for breeding, etc.

The Dairy Cow Weigh Tape

It is made of Tyvek so it is pretty much weather-proof and durable.  When it gets dirty (it will), you can clean it without damaging it.  One side of it is simply a measuring tape with inches.  It sort of reminds me of a sewing tape that my wife keeps in her sewing box - this one is just larger.

Inches on one side

If you flip it over, you can see that it is broken up into thirds - one line for Holsteins, one for Guernseys, and one for Jerseys.  We have Jerseys and as you can see, they are the smallest of the three breeds.  The numbers you see are weights.

So what you do is have your animal stand on a flat, level surface and place the tape around the cow's girth, just behind the front legs.  Run the tape all the way around and mark down the number of inches.  When you flip the tape over at whatever inch measurement, the tape will have corresponding weights based on the circumference.

Weights for each breed.

It will show you things such as the lightest Jersey breeding weight.  Without this tape, we went strictly by age, but it is important that your heifer weighs enough. Now we'll know.

Lightest Breeding Weight for Jerseys

The tape also tells you the average calving weight by breed.

So I measured Rosie and she measured 69 inches around.  When I measured Daisy, she was about the same.  The girls were a little startled as we'd never done this to them before.  
The instructions say not to pull the tape real tight.  I marked the tape with my finger at 69 inches. Flipping the tape over at 69 inches reveals that the cows each weigh roughly 905 pounds.

And that is the tale of the tape.  905 pounds.  Even though Jerseys are relatively smaller cows, 905 pounds is still pretty heavy.  That is especially evident when they step on your foot.