I was wondering if anyone knew if at the meeting being held around the country by the LAA and NSA if they were going to have the different tags and readers or if it is just going to cover the legislation.

Thanks

Apart from the NSA circular (we got the England one by email but the Welsh one in the post!) I haven't heard any other details.  The NSA site gives the venues in date order here http://www.nationalsheep.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=774&Itemid=55 and the Defra website gives the same details in alphabetical order here http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/control/market-visits.htm . 

As to the legislation, unless Defra are letting the NSA/EBLEX/Livestock Auctioneers into the secret in advance, they won't know what the final regs will be as the Defra timetable is to publish it sometime in December.  The usual last minute scramble I suppose as it's supposed to start 31 December and for anyone lambing in January I imagine they will not be able to order tags in advance with any certainty that they aren't ordering a reserved colour. 

 I presume the colours will carry on as they have though in 2 years they'll probably change something again.

I had an email from the NSA and they say that for those unable to attend the meetings, they will send a summary of meetings to members by the end of October. I guess that we will all be as up-to-date as possible by then.

As Defra aren't due to publish the Statutory Instrument giving effect to the new regulations until December, we can only assume that the information available up until then is a combination of leaks and informed guesswork. 

 One thing is for certain I'm glad we lamb end of March/April rather than January at least we have more time then to order and sort things out if they do change their minds. Either way we will probably end up with a different ear tag pliers we are gaining a fair collection in the last number of years compared with just the one since my dad had kept sheep till then.

I went to the EID meeting at Worcester last night.  It was very well attended and informative.  Even though I have tried to keep up to date with the subject there were two items in particular which were new to me.

Firstly, just to indicate that DEFRA are still making the rules up as they go along, they apparently decided last week that if a sheep not born on your holding loses a tag, as an alternative to fitting it with red replacement tags and cross referencing the change in your records, you will be able to order a replacement, identically numbered tag.  In other words, I can order a tag with another farmer's UK flock number on it and likewise another farmer can order a tag with my UK flock number.  I wonder if that is a sensible development?  Apparently the NSA were informed of that change in the rules last Thursday.

Secondly, all individual tag numbers under the new system will be allocated by the Ear Tag Allocation System (ETAS) on a strict consecutive basis so you will no longer have any say on the number range you are using.  So bang goes my system of denoting year of birth by the first two digits of the number (8001 onwards for 2008, 9001 onwards for 2009 etc.) but more importantly the new system will start at 1 for everyone.  Well actually 00001 - because under the new system the ear tag 'number' is not actually a number at all, it is just a text string using the characters 0 to 9.  I'm hoping my computer will be able to distinguish lamb no. 00001 born in 2010 from lamb number 1 born in 1994!  I'm also hoping the breed society's system will do the same.

The meeting was also told that there was a list of suppliers with approved EID tags on the RPA website.  There is, but there are only two suppliers on it, one in Northern Ireland and Shearwell data in England.  Shearwell only do one style of EID tag.  This morning I have phoned two other tag manufacturers. Ritchey and Daltons.  Ritchey have one style of tag approved and two others in the pipeline and Daltons have none approved but three in the pipeline.  Both suggested that I should not order yet because it will probably be December at the earliest before they will get approval and a very helpful chap at Daltons said that their people and representatives from other tag companies are still attending meetings with DEFRA and reviewing the Handbook to be sent to all sheep farmers with the new rules, supposedly also in December.

The latest info from DEFRA is entitled 'Electronic identification of sheep from 31 December 2009 - Ordering your tags'.  It was published on 9 November and can be downloaded here.  It doesn't mention that if you want to order tags now you will have an extremely limited choice!

 

Compared to your problem ours isn't so big but we have always used the colour of the tags to denote each family group quickly one of which is yellow with the other advailable colours being used already it will mean we will have to resort to using the reader to sort through them for tupping  as opposed to just looking at the tag.

 

You have been able to order "like for like" replacements for lost tags on animals NOT born on your holding for some time. I've done it for several years for my pedigree flock with no problem. Tag manufacturers were well aware it was within the rules. I've had tags from Daltons and Allfelx and both knew this was perfectly ok. Also, the official sequential numbering has been in place for three years now. Starting in 2006 I think, so every year since then your tags should have come with the next batch of numbers as authorised by ETAS. So nothing unusual or different unfortunately!! I can't wait to see how the manufacturers cope with people like me who keep large flocks of both sheep AND goats and who therefore need new 01 numbers for the sheep but continuing sequential numbers for the goats!!! The whole thing is going to be absolute chaos. As for replacing EID tags when lost - its going to cost a fortune.

What will EID tags cost?

 I've seen prices from 75p to £1.50 so far just for EID tag. Remember we will also need a matching non-EID tag in the other ear.  The whole thing would have been so much easier if we had to EID only when animals leave our farm. I believe that idea did finally get through to Hilary Benn and he made a last ditch attempt to argue this with the EU in Brussels but to no avail.

I heartily wish I lived in Wales or Scotland where your governments actually support rather than deliberately hinder farmers!!!

The price of tags is already falling quickly and if you are ordering reasonably large numbers are now less than 75p. for a pair of EID and ordinary numerical to match.

I would be suprised if the price ends up being much over 50p. for a single electronic tag.