You have been hired as a consultant to provide recommendations as to whether or not an operation should invest in an electronic individual animal identification system (i.e., RFID). Your recommendation should provide the pros and cons of such a system, what it will cost on an annual basis, and any suggested changes you might have (and why) as to the general management of the operation. Your report should be well organized and to the point. The people that have hired you are busy people and do not want to wade through lots of excess paper, but they are good business managers and want to make a good decision. Thus, your report should focus on quality of information NOT quantity (i.e., you probably should be able to hit the important points in several pages of text plus any supporting tables or figures).

Cow/ Calf – Hired by KDB Farms, a farm operation that uses their cows to clean up field residues and alfalfa aftermath. At present, there are 125 cows in their herd. This operation retains heifers for replacement (approximately 16% per year) and sells the calves either at weaning or after a 30-45 day preconditioning program. Currently, this operation does not weigh any of their calves prior to them leaving the ranch although they do weigh calves at birth.