Get Your Scale Ready Before Fall Weaning Starts

By the time calves are coming off cows and the pens are full, there is not much room left to schedule a service call. The last week of July is a better time to check your scale than the first week of weaning.

Most producers weigh calves at weaning to see how they performed over the season. That number is often adjusted to a standard 205 day weight, which is a common way ranchers and breed associations compare calf crops year to year regardless of when calves were actually born or weighed. It is one of the most useful numbers a producer gets all year, since it reflects milk, genetics, and how the whole season went.

That comparison only means something if the scale is accurate. A reading that drifts even a little can throw off how a calf crop looks on paper, and that can affect everything from marketing decisions to which cows and bulls get kept for breeding.

Once weaning starts, everyone is busy. Pens are full, trucks are scheduled, and there is little patience for waiting on a service call. Checking the scale now, while things are still slow, means one less thing to worry about once the real work begins.

Most problems we find are small if they are caught early. A reading that drifts. Numbers that jump around before settling. A platform that takes longer than it should to give a final weight. Left alone through a busy season, small issues tend to turn into bigger ones.

A lot of scale trouble comes down to one component. A load cell, a cable, or an indicator. It is rarely necessary to replace the whole system. The right approach is figuring out what is actually causing the problem and fixing only what needs fixing, which is both faster and cheaper than starting over.

If your scale has not been checked since spring, now is the time, not in the middle of weaning when there is no room to spare. A quick call is usually enough for us to tell you what to look at and whether a technician needs to come out.