The Marking tab is for recording your annual calf marking (branding) season — the total calves put through, the steer/heifer split, tag colours, and which paddock the mob was in. These records feed directly into the Marking report.
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In Australian cattle farming, "marking" or "calf marking" is the process of working through a mob of cows and calves to:
Marking is typically done at 2–4 months of age, while calves are still small enough to handle. It's one of the key dates in the cattle calendar and the point where you know exactly how many calves you've raised and what your steer/heifer ratio is.
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Year | The year this marking was done (e.g. 2025) |
| Paddock | Which paddock the cows and calves were in at marking time |
| Total Calves | Total number of calves marked — steers and heifers combined |
| Steers | Number of bull calves castrated (will be raised as steers) |
| Heifers | Number of heifer calves retained (not castrated) |
| Tag Colour | The NLIS ear tag colour used this year — this is how you identify a beast's birth year in the paddock |
| Notes | Anything else worth recording — unusual conditions, high death percentage, grafted calves, etc. |
BlackCow automatically calculates the steer/heifer split as a percentage from your totals. For example, if you mark 80 calves — 43 steers and 37 heifers — your split is 54% steers / 46% heifers.
Over time, this split is shown in the Marking report so you can see if your herd is running consistently or if there's an unusual season. A roughly 50/50 split is normal. A very skewed split (e.g. 65/35) might indicate a sampling issue or could simply be natural variation in a small mob.
The Reports → Marking tab uses your marking records to show:
You can compare the total calves marked against your cows-at-marking to get a rough calving percentage (though the Calving report does this more precisely from your calving records).