Cattle tracing - Records on farms and at markets
What information must be recorded
Herd Register
It is a requirement under European Law that keepers record in their herd register the details of every birth, every movement on and off the holding, and every death of their cattle.
The register must contain the following details:
- the ear-tag number;
- the date of birth;
- the sex;
- the breed;
- the dam identity;
- the date of movement on and off your holding;
and
- the details of where the animals had moved to or from.
The Register may be paper or computer based. The register should be in accordance with Regulation 8 of the relevant country’s Cattle Identification Regulations 2007. Registers must be retained by farms for 10 years and 3 years in any other case (e.g. markets) from the end of the calendar year in which the last entry was made. A copy of the Farm Register is available for download.
Time constraints for completing the register
Register must be completed within the following deadlines:
- 36 hours in the case of movement on or off a holding;
- 7 days for the birth of a diary animal;
- 30 days for the birth of cattle not in a dairy herd;
- 7 days of death; and
- 36 hours of replacing eartags.
In addition to recording the details on movements within 36 hours, the case of an animal aged under 12 weeks which is being moved through a market, the market operator must also record:
- name and address of seller;
- name and address of buyer;
- eartag number of the animal;
- date of sale; and
if the animal has moved within a market during the previous 28 days the address of the market and the date the calf was brought there.
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