Cattle tagging regulation change?

[S J H]

I have probably 20 sets of tags still clipped together correctly and cattle with intact ears not damaged, The tags have simply worked there way out some found at feed fence admittedly and lots in field free to replace but a load of hassle

Has the hole just got bigger @Forever Fendt ?

 

[gone up the hill]

The point I was making is that in this day and age there are more efficient ways of getting information and messages out to members other than letters.
We have used most NFU comms channels to raise awareness in the membership about the proposed new LIPs. But it should be remembered it is a government scheme not an NFU one. Most people I’ve talked to are satisfied it’s an improvement on the old systems.
But I’m sure like any new scheme there will be practical issues that will need ironing out, it will involve inconvenience at first and there will be farmers who will need bringing up to speed.
But I’m conscious that in my own farming if every time something new and challenging came along I ran for the hills kicking and screaming then I wouldn’t have seen any of the considerable technical improvements I have witnessed and benefitted from. I’ve no appetite to want to return to the days of the hessian sack.

Its an NFU scheme if truth be told.

Instead of surrounding yourself at the Royal Cornwall show with old boy NFU members who agree with/ tell you what you want to hear @Guy Smith why don't you actually meet working NFU farmer members who will have to deal with the cost/ hassle of these nonsense like Eid tagging in cattle/ RT schemes that you and Minette are intent on inflicting on them??

I suggested over 2 years ago that you spend a Sat morning at Sedgemoor livestock market ( one of the biggest weekly livestock markets in the UK ) meeting working farmers yet you are still to turn up, if you did you would meet very large and very small NFU farmer members from across the UK and I can tell you that at least 90% of them would tell you in no uncertain terms what they think about EID tagging/ RT etc but you will certainly will not like what they have to say!

Thou of course you wont come and hear those views because you and Minette etc have already decided long ago what the NFU's position is on EID tagging for cattle/ RT etc...

 

[Forever Fendt]

Has the hole just got bigger @Forever Fendt ?

No not really any replacement tags have a new hole,They just seem to roll up and work there way out,I have some cows with metal tags and they become unreadable,Perhaps microchip them like dogs and cats

 

[An Gof]

Guy...I don't want to get involved in an anti-nfu spat twixt you and guth,

but..... you must be mixing with very different farmers to me -and I accept that that's hardly surprising.
Few I talk to have heard much detail, and very few are queuing up for it. Almost everyone is ruing the idea of circumventing the one gov office which does work.
Some who know plenty about the detail are shaking their heads in dismay.
The chips fail, the readers don't always work, and or get smashed, devices don't like being thrown around cow crap splattered yards and cabs, we do not all carry -or even own in my case- smart phones, and we often don't have signal.
And that's before the system crashes, which, given gov history, is hardly a long shot.

When I'm tagging calves on the hill, a piece of paper folds into my shirt pocket, and a biro lives behind my jug ear.
Sometimes the paper gets soggy and has to be ironed out on the aga when I get home, and sometimes I lose the 10p biro..... but I sure don't want to be carrying yet more guff.

Knowing that individual sheep records are obviously coming fills me with depression...it's repellent, and so far from how I live and work, and so unlikely to function easily.
I know very well that I'll merely be telling more lies, and exposing myself to more harassment from officers of the state.

And saying it's a gov scheme is a bit disingenuous, given the NFU have been in the thick of it from day one, employing a career 'job hopper' to hold hands with that arrogant DEFRA bully.

Implying that those of us who don't want it are hessian sack farmers is a bit unkind, thanks anyway.
I'm not agin progress at all, but past experience with eid has shown it to be a money making exercise for tag co's, another stick for inspectors to beat us with, and more complication I don't want.
I notice over my time raising cattle here that we 've gone from barely having tags in them at all, to the very real threat of electronic chips and (supposed) real time recording -there's a joke-....and all the while, the value of my livestock has steadily receded.
We both know this pattern isn't going to altered by the new system - anyone further down the chain who can save a few pence will keep it, while anything which adds cost to me is merely hastening the trend.

Sorry mate.

Excellent post @egbert , there are obviously more similarities between Devon and Cornish farmers than I first thought
It seems it may be a bit different for some up country ......

 

[JP1]

Excellent post @egbert , there is obviously more similarities between Devon and Cornish farmers than I first thought
It seems it may be a bit different for some up country ......

Not all of them. When I get to Tendring Show (real home turf) in July , I'll ask the question again

 

[@dlm]

I like @Mo and @Guy Smith passion for arguing their cause, i really do, ive not been a nfu member for a number of years, not saying rightly or wrongly, but i believe from memory and correct me if im wrong that their policy was to protect/encourage farming or farmers well being? Well suicide rates in ag industry continue to be up their with vets and drs at the top of the tree, farming returns continue to be on the decline, no idea of official figures in last few years but remember a few years back small farmers losing about 6 to 10 k a year with subs and large farms making 20 odd thousand, those are probably a 2/3 way partnership making the money well under national wage. The passion of eid and its essential requirement to farmers future is as most know it complete bullshxt. I run 800 ewes, 400 lambing hogs alongside 500 cattle. Scanning was lower last year with drought, turned out ewes with 1.7 lambs, lambs gain nearly 500g a day. Im told that when figures told to sheep expert vet in local practice, 90% are done at that, i dont know every lamb individually of course, but do remember odd ones one week at 38 kilo and 38.5 the following week. Across 1300 plus early lambs and just parents and one part time guy i would need a big investment to have recording equipment and data processing to learn dlwg and so on, and possibly extra staff to get this info, and to gain what? And i fully admit im a backward hession sack type farmer, that dares to use stockmanship and my "eye", i know what a fool and retard i am!! All the investment to improve welfare and performance is commendable is fine at a higher level, but fundamentably makes no difference to the farmer at all, improved figures if they occurred will just result in a lower dw price via costing contracts or a larger importing of foreign meat that simply dont adhere to stipulations we are subjected to. That is what matters to farmers, the old saying of a level playing field, but also increased margins, not to be greedy but to stay in business, to be able to encourage new blood into industry rather than wages being 6k behind what they would earn in a supermarket with overtime including bank holidays, eid is not what the average farmer wants or needs to improve the industry, no fool believes that, that policy is just going for political votes, dont embarrass yourself by claiming that.

 

[egbert]

Excellent post @egbert , there are obviously more similarities between Devon and Cornish farmers than I first thought
It seems it may be a bit different for some up country ......

You're too kind.

As for differences across the Tamar..... (vive le difference)
I notice my 2 county livestock reps (last year, when I asked) are both right behind the project.

One is a perfectly nice chap, but mostly angling to benefit from expansive housing development worth some millions, which i contend might influence his view of farmings future.
(and who was wrestling a mad bovine in his pens when I phoned, which was evidently thrashing about like a demented thing.....which I thought neatly ironic given our topic of discussion)
The other has no cattle, didn't know me from Adam (which doesn't bother me, but given my relationship with the NFU at the time hardly boded well....), and gave me every impression of not being able to think his way out of a wet paper bag.
(I'm sorry, I don't wish to be unkind, but he had presumably put himself up for the post....)
When pressed, he admitted he knew almost nothing about the proposals, and when asked about farmers without mobile signal/tech abilities, declared that they 'shouldn't be farming'.
I promise you, that is what he said.

Both had swallowed the plan completely, despite it being shot full of lies and half truths.

I know we get the representation we deserve, and that the firm have to deal with gov on the one hand, and our chosen reps on the other....but.....

 

[S J H]

No not really any replacement tags have a new hole,They just seem to roll up and work there way out,I have some cows with metal tags and they become unreadable,Perhaps microchip them like dogs and cats

I was helping someone the other day, the amount of lost tags was unbelievable. I was running out ear to tag in.

I'd be for a bolus of some sort, surely it's possible, but I doubt the tag firms will be pushing it.

 

[S J H]

Its an NFU scheme if truth be told.

Instead of surrounding yourself at the Royal Cornwall show with old boy NFU members who agree with/ tell you what you want to hear @Guy Smith why don't you actually meet working NFU farmer members who will have to deal with the cost/ hassle of these nonsense like Eid tagging in cattle/ RT schemes that you and Minette are intent on inflicting on them??

I suggested over 2 years ago that you spend a Sat morning at Sedgemoor livestock market ( one of the biggest weekly livestock markets in the UK ) meeting working farmers yet you are still to turn up, if you did you would meet very large and very small NFU farmer members from across the UK and I can tell you that at least 90% of them would tell you in no uncertain terms what they think about EID tagging/ RT etc but you will certainly will not like what they have to say!

Thou of course you wont come and hear those views because you and Minette etc have already decided long ago what the NFU's position is on EID tagging for cattle/ RT etc...

I don't usually agree with you @gone up the hill , but you're bang on there.

 

[milkloss]

Both had swallowed the plan completely, despite it being shot full of lies and half truths.

..

This is the problem. It’s been swallowed and now there’s no going back. People in this position never seem to accept reality and admit they need to reassess a situation when the stark reality hits them in the face.

 

[Henarar]

Most people I’ve talked to are satisfied it’s an improvement on the old systems.

try talking to the farmers on this thread @Guy Smith most here seem satisfied that its not what they want and of no benefit to them

 

[Tarw Coch]

When pressed, he admitted he knew almost nothing about the proposals, and when asked about farmers without mobile signal/tech abilities, declared that they 'shouldn't be farming'.
I promise you, that is what he said.

Discrimination on the basis of sex, skin colour religion amongst other things aren’t tolerated in the slightest nowadays yet technological discrimination is actively promoted.
Apparently from what I’ve read on here there are 22 bodies involved in the consultation on eid, you would have hoped some of them would have made a stand for those who are going to find this extremely difficult to cope with even if they are only a small minority, and I’d certainly have hoped the NFU would have done as they ought to know how difficult this is likely to be for some.
The lack of tolerance for others shown by the NFU representative above is nothing short of disgusting, not that I expect a lot of people to agree with that point of view on an Internet forum, but there are still plenty out there who haven’t a clue what one is.
Had he shown such a lack of tolerance for others on some of the things I mentioned at the begging of this post I’m sure there would have been calls for him to leave.

 

[PaulNix]

But I’m sure like any new scheme there will be practical issues that will need ironing out, it will involve inconvenience at first and there will be farmers who will need bringing up to speed

This is always said in any new complex scheme which is a clusterf**k, ( an early warning perhaps ? ) but WHY is it always the end users who are not seen to be smart enough to use it and need to be "brought up to speed" and not those who make and promote the new systems ?

If you unsure on how useful something is take a long look at who invents it, if it was a group of progressive farmers with no conflict of interests then ok but who came up with all this, yep seems it was all led from the the other side of the food chain, also as we are being pushed into this as it will be beneficial to us, sorry but the current CTS system is the best gov systems bar none so why is this one being changed, the cynic in me is thinking that it's because they sort out problems fast and without fuss that the civil servants instead of working out why there depts are so useless decided to take the best away to make everyone equally bad, someone probably got the wrong end of the stick when on a team building week away focusing on equal opportunities employment.

As this is to make our meat better than anyone else's does this mean the NFU etc are going to be demanding that all cattle which get to the UK food chain follow the same rules ? you know just like we are told they follow the same farm assurance standards.

But can we drop all this ‘us and them’ stuff- we’re both Farmers. All farmers are different but at the end of the day we’ve more commonalities than differences

This reminds me of about a decade ago when the soil association would put the boot into conventional farming but when anyone mentioned what they were getting away with the would say we should all stick together as we were all farmers.

 

[egbert]

Discrimination on the basis of sex, skin colour religion amongst other things aren’t tolerated in the slightest nowadays yet technological discrimination is actively promoted.
Apparently from what I’ve read on here there are 22 bodies involved in the consultation on eid, you would have hoped some of them would have made a stand for those who are going to find this extremely difficult to cope with even if they are only a small minority, and I’d certainly have hoped the NFU would have done as they ought to know how difficult this is likely to be for some.
The lack of tolerance for others shown by the NFU representative above is nothing short of disgusting, not that I expect a lot of people to agree with that point of view on an Internet forum, but there are still plenty out there who haven’t a clue what one is.
Had he shown such a lack of tolerance for others on some of the things I mentioned at the begging of this post I’m sure there would have been calls for him to leave.

more irony.... I struggle to be more than dissapointed with the man...he is clearly not very bright, which isn't something i tend to hold against anyone.
I strongly suspect his own grasp of tech isn't any better than mine.

 

[Forever Fendt]

I was helping someone the other day, the amount of lost tags was unbelievable. I was running out ear to tag in.

I'd be for a bolus of some sort, surely it's possible, but I doubt the tag firms will be pushing it.

TB test reading today just walked around field and a 5 month old has lost both since Tuesday she is a twin to a bull calf so know her number is consecutive to the bull so not hard to order these ones , We have put them in both ways with no noticeable difference

 

[egbert]

TB test reading today just walked around field and a 5 month old has lost both since Tuesday she is a twin to a bull calf so know her number is consecutive to the bull so not hard to order these ones , We have put them in both ways with no noticeable difference

we never order both at once...as this is an admission that you've got a beast with NO TAGS...OMG call the united nations.
We're back to one ketchum one primary now, after a trial using 2 plastics...at least it takes the beggars 8-9 years to rub through a ketchum

 

[milkloss]

we never order both at once...as this is an admission that you've got a beast with NO TAGS...OMG call the united nations.
We're back to one ketchum one primary now, after a trial using 2 plastics...at least it takes the beggars 8-9 years to rub through a ketchum

I used to think the same but several times I have ordered maybe 5 or 6 sets of double tags with no issues. We put a single write in allflex tag on the animal in the meantime and usually they last until the animal leaves the farm.

 

[Half Pipe]

I believe the problem with CTS is the government doesn't own the database, I have heard IBM own it and charge large fees every time government wants to run a search query!
Probably why it seems to run ok!

Eid works fairly well, but I think tags must still have a printed number for a backup.
We use a Psion workabout Pro it happily reads Eid or accepts numbers typed in

 

[egbert]

I used to think the same but several times I have ordered maybe 5 or 6 sets of double tags with no issues. We put a single write in allflex tag on the animal in the meantime and usually they last until the animal leaves the farm.

obviously I wouldn't admit it here...
but we've often got bulls with no tags.
There are some who rub them out for a pastime, and sticking another in only irritates em

One famous old friend went with none for several years......
He did like to go visiting, if a rambler left a gate unfastened, but it was OK... the neighbours all knew him by name anyway! (first name 'That soddin'....XXXXX')
I don't think he had any tags the day we put him down on farm, well into his second decade.

 

[An Gof]

This is always said in any new complex scheme which is a clusterfudge, ( an early warning perhaps ? ) but WHY is it always the end users who are not seen to be smart enough to use it and need to be "brought up to speed" and not those who make and promote the new systems ?

If you unsure on how useful something is take a long look at who invents it, if it was a group of progressive farmers with no conflict of interests then ok but who came up with all this, yep seems it was all led from the the other side of the food chain, also as we are being pushed into this as it will be beneficial to us, sorry but the current CTS system is the best gov systems bar none so why is this one being changed, the cynic in me is thinking that it's because they sort out problems fast and without fuss that the civil servants instead of working out why there depts are so useless decided to take the best away to make everyone equally bad, someone probably got the wrong end of the stick when on a team building week away focusing on equal opportunities employment.

As this is to make our meat better than anyone else's does this mean the NFU etc are going to be demanding that all cattle which get to the UK food chain follow the same rules ? you know just like we are told they follow the same farm assurance standards.






This reminds me of about a decade ago when the soil association would put the boot into conventional farming but when anyone mentioned what they were getting away with the would say we should all stick together as we were all farmers.

Soil Association still putting the boot into conventional farmers. Some things never change