Whenever we want to weigh in, as humans, we jump on the bathroom scale. It is a digital scale. You put your toe on it, it flashes CALC and then zeroes out. Then you stand on it and it flashes your weight. Easy like Sunday Morning.
We don't happen to have a bathroom scale for our cows. We like to keep track of the growth rate of our calves and have started weighing them monthly to chart their growth. They are both still nursing off of their mommas. We haven't weaned yet. They are growing on a mixture of momma's milk and grass. With all the rain this year, they've enjoyed a lot of grass to eat.
So we'll show you how we weigh them. We purchased a 'Weigh tape' at our local feed store. It reminds me of a tape that a tailor uses to alter the length of you pants. We simply wrap it around the calf's body right behind the front legs. Don't pull extra tight - just tight enough to pull the slack out. Mark that line on the tape with your finger.
This is a dairy cow tape and it has three lines. The top is for Jerseys. The middle for Guernseys, and the bottom for Holsteins.
On one side it shows their girth. Elsie's measurement was 45.5 inches.
If you flip the tape over at the same point as 45.5 inches and look at the top line, it shows that Elsie weighs 310 pounds.
Elsie was born April 7, 2021
On May 1, she had 31 1/2" girth 92 pounds
On June 6, she (didn't write down girth) 175 pounds
On July 2, she had 42" girth 240 pounds
On August 7, she had 45 1/2" girth 310 pounds
Elsie is growing at a pretty good clip, more than a pound a day weight gain. We'll continue to watch her and chart her growth.
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