New livestock EID measures announced by Michael Gove

[JD-Kid]

as for a tag printer i have one already

 

[Kiwi Pete]

as for a tag printer i have one already

Did you get a grant for it, bet that cost a bit?
Shouldn't have to pay for that sort of stuff out of your profit.

 

[Frank-the-Wool]

I can see the compulsory scanning of meds and animals used on becoming a backward step and creating more falsifying records. Those that don't embrace technology are living in dark ages according to @Frank-the-Wool , maybe so in some eyes, but whilst far younger than average age farmer I don't see any need or benefit in almost the large majority of available technology, rely on stockmanship and memory and a brain and expect a profit of 100 pound per acre before outside interests. The compulsory scanning of meds, if anyone like me, run 3 sites very close together but say a calf with pneumonia you jab it at site a , scanner in house, your lambing and have 80 lamb that day, and the next, then another calf with pneumonia , then 70 lamb,the next day the weather is better so get those lambs out and those young calves, then oh sh!t they were jabbed, don't tell me im wrong and everyone is perfect, they will scan the next two calves, where as back of fag packet the number would be down, any system pen or paper or ultra modern tech is still dependant on its user, eid with someone that treats cattle with fluke drench but forgot to charge wands batteries will scan another batch, all I think it will really encourage is the useage of black market drugs that my vet informs me is in surprising wide spread use, down to the incoming advances in "recording"!!

I didn't mention anything about having to use a scanner to do every single animal that you treat. You can still do it by writing it down on a piece of paper. My point about animal medicines is that it is the law to record which ones you have treated, whether that is as an individual or as a batch. GUTH seemed to be suggesting that he did not record any of this information in his earlier post!
There is going to be much more need to be accurate as the pressure is on us all to reduce antibiotic use.

My point about using technology is that if used properly it saves a lot of time and money and is much more accurate with cattle. This time of the year we buy a lot of cattle and if they were all tagged with an EID chip the saving in lots of peoples time would be huge.

Firstly most of the cattle have to be TB tested before movement, so the tags have to be read twice, this is fine if they are coming from the holding of birth as lists are accurate and mistakes not made. However where calves have been reared from different places there are often duplications of numbers if you don' read the herd number.

Secondly if the animal is sold through a market the ear tags have to be manually read again and matched to the passport and stickers applied. I am not sure how many of you have seen the number of people the markets have to employ to sign, date and put a sticker on a passport. If you have EID there will be no need for a passport. If you want paper you can download a list as the Vets do now for TB testing, however because of delays in processing, those lists can be out of date.

Thirdly we check every passport against the animal when it comes on the farm, if the animal had an EID you would just scan them up the race. When we have entered them manually on to our computer system we then do a reconciliation with BCMS which throws up any errors on dates of birth, movement dates or sire or dam numbers. This takes seconds and is just at the press of a button.

Fourthly we normally treat every animal for Fluke on arrival and a later point they are Wormed, mostly these are done in batches but if you do not know what is in the batch you have to write down the ear numbers again. If you scanned them you can just download the information against the treatment and the batch number and use by date of the product, this is done in seconds.

Fifthly we have to TB test again before selling many cattle and as I have pointed out it is possible to make mistakes from sheets of paper when you have several hundred cattle that have come from different holdings of origin.

I rest my case that technology should work for you and save time and money.

 

[spin cycle]

Sort of
Don't get many delegates to vote for though

time for the nfu to modernise itself cutting out the 'faff in the middle' and make the president directly electable by the membership

 

[Tim W]

[QUOTE="Frank-the-Wool, post: 5041076, member: 699"

I rest my case that technology should work for you and save time and money.[/QUOTE]

It works for me with sheep and just amazes me that it hasn't been embraced by the cattle industry of it's own accord ????
The chips for EID cost 50p ---for a beast worth £1000 that is negligible compared to the benefits it brings

 

[gone up the hill]

I didn't mention anything about having to use a scanner to do every single animal that you treat. You can still do it by writing it down on a piece of paper. My point about animal medicines is that it is the law to record which ones you have treated, whether that is as an individual or as a batch. GUTH seemed to be suggesting that he did not record any of this information in his earlier post!
There is going to be much more need to be accurate as the pressure is on us all to reduce antibiotic use.

My point about using technology is that if used properly it saves a lot of time and money and is much more accurate with cattle. This time of the year we buy a lot of cattle and if they were all tagged with an EID chip the saving in lots of peoples time would be huge.

Firstly most of the cattle have to be TB tested before movement, so the tags have to be read twice, this is fine if they are coming from the holding of birth as lists are accurate and mistakes not made. However where calves have been reared from different places there are often duplications of numbers if you don' read the herd number.

Secondly if the animal is sold through a market the ear tags have to be manually read again and matched to the passport and stickers applied. I am not sure how many of you have seen the number of people the markets have to employ to sign, date and put a sticker on a passport. If you have EID there will be no need for a passport. If you want paper you can download a list as the Vets do now for TB testing, however because of delays in processing, those lists can be out of date.

Thirdly we check every passport against the animal when it comes on the farm, if the animal had an EID you would just scan them up the race. When we have entered them manually on to our computer system we then do a reconciliation with BCMS which throws up any errors on dates of birth, movement dates or sire or dam numbers. This takes seconds and is just at the press of a button.

Fourthly we normally treat every animal for Fluke on arrival and a later point they are Wormed, mostly these are done in batches but if you do not know what is in the batch you have to write down the ear numbers again. If you scanned them you can just download the information against the treatment and the batch number and use by date of the product, this is done in seconds.

Fifthly we have to TB test again before selling many cattle and as I have pointed out it is possible to make mistakes from sheets of paper when you have several hundred cattle that have come from different holdings of origin.

I rest my case that technology should work for you and save time and money.

Stop making up a pack of lies Frank the wool, I NEVER suggested or implied that I don't record all med treatments/ wormers etc, you are making up a pack of lies now to suit your own agenda!

Utterly shocking that someone of your standing in the industry resorts to insulting people/ making up a pack of lies against people that don't agree with you! is this how you have risen so high up the ranks over the years......... Just words fail me and you are a classic example why thousands of farmers feel their views aren't taken into account by the likes of the NFU!

 

[gone up the hill]

Fine if people want to use it voluntary for whatever they want to use it for but it should not be made compulsory to use Eid tags and have to record all the info/ movements etc electronically.

Once compulsory the cattle tags will cost a lot more than 50p tag ( and prob already do )

No reason why large farmers like frank the wool who want to use Eid cannot buy the tags and tag cattle with a cross reference Eid tag when they buy cattle, no reason to force it onto everyone just because of the vested intrest's of a few farmers.

 

[milkloss]

Stop making up a pack of lies Frank the wool, I NEVER suggested or implied that I don't record all med treatments/ wormers etc, you are making up a pack of lies now to suit your own agenda!

Utterly shocking that someone of your standing in the industry resorts to insulting people/ making up a pack of lies against people that don't agree with you! is this how you have risen so high up the ranks over the years......... Just words fail me and you are a classic example why thousands of farmers feel their views aren't taken into account by the likes of the NFU!

Slow down Guth, I did warn you earlier that your arguments that pull facts from the extreme would lose you an argument.

You said:

Currently if for example you worm a bunch of cattle there is no requirement to record all the numbers, all you have to write down is say : wormed 50 cattle and the product/ batch no/date etc etc, ( same with TB testing ) when Eid comes in the intent is that you will have to scan each number and then update each animals record so yes it will increase workload.

Which to me intimates that you treat a group of cattle with a controlled drug without actually knowing their individual identity.

Get better at your debating guth and you could be useful.

 

[The Beef]

I am afraid you are supposed to be doing this already. Do you not keep a medicine book down there?
You have to record all purchases of medicines with use by dates and batch numbers.
When you treat an animal you need to record it so you know the withdrawal period for the product.
You have to record the batch numbers of the TB tests.

What EID will do is save you the paperwork. Those who wish to continue to live in the dark ages will be able to use pens and paper or even bark and charcoal if they wish.
Those of us who wish to move into the 21st century would like to move on.

Could someone set up a poll for NFU members to see if 9 out of 10 do not want EID in cattle?

It would appear that some aren't adhering to present regulations - there is no wonder that the authorities want to plug that gap. Could it just be the lack of regard and will to sidestep any regulation by some is a driver for all this?
Some naysayers perhaps need to take a tad of responsibility themselves!!

 

[Hilly]

Stop making up a pack of lies Frank the wool, I NEVER suggested or implied that I don't record all med treatments/ wormers etc, you are making up a pack of lies now to suit your own agenda!

Utterly shocking that someone of your standing in the industry resorts to insulting people/ making up a pack of lies against people that don't agree with you! is this how you have risen so high up the ranks over the years......... Just words fail me and you are a classic example why thousands of farmers feel their views aren't taken into account by the likes of the NFU!

steady on old chap, frank is a good bloke, debate but dont take it to far.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Yeah, I would like to apologise for my post above about the 'get a grant for a tag-pen' - I can't delete it nor correct the typo that says I managed 7500 cows. 750 was enough!

Certainly some evidence that more human error than computer error exists..... could you edit and delete if you have a min, please, @JP1

 

[The Beef]

I didn't mention anything about having to use a scanner to do every single animal that you treat. You can still do it by writing it down on a piece of paper. My point about animal medicines is that it is the law to record which ones you have treated, whether that is as an individual or as a batch. GUTH seemed to be suggesting that he did not record any of this information in his earlier post!
There is going to be much more need to be accurate as the pressure is on us all to reduce antibiotic use.

My point about using technology is that if used properly it saves a lot of time and money and is much more accurate with cattle. This time of the year we buy a lot of cattle and if they were all tagged with an EID chip the saving in lots of peoples time would be huge.

Firstly most of the cattle have to be TB tested before movement, so the tags have to be read twice, this is fine if they are coming from the holding of birth as lists are accurate and mistakes not made. However where calves have been reared from different places there are often duplications of numbers if you don' read the herd number.

Secondly if the animal is sold through a market the ear tags have to be manually read again and matched to the passport and stickers applied. I am not sure how many of you have seen the number of people the markets have to employ to sign, date and put a sticker on a passport. If you have EID there will be no need for a passport. If you want paper you can download a list as the Vets do now for TB testing, however because of delays in processing, those lists can be out of date.

Thirdly we check every passport against the animal when it comes on the farm, if the animal had an EID you would just scan them up the race. When we have entered them manually on to our computer system we then do a reconciliation with BCMS which throws up any errors on dates of birth, movement dates or sire or dam numbers. This takes seconds and is just at the press of a button.

Fourthly we normally treat every animal for Fluke on arrival and a later point they are Wormed, mostly these are done in batches but if you do not know what is in the batch you have to write down the ear numbers again. If you scanned them you can just download the information against the treatment and the batch number and use by date of the product, this is done in seconds.

Fifthly we have to TB test again before selling many cattle and as I have pointed out it is possible to make mistakes from sheets of paper when you have several hundred cattle that have come from different holdings of origin.

I rest my case that technology should work for you and save time and money.

Absolutely agree on every point
I't is so much easier and more accurate than writing loads of lists then transferring them to the medicine book/movement book. And signing and stickering passports. God some of you chaps must love paperwork - that's all I can say!!
If the tag says on it exactly what the chip says - then those who don't want to embrace the simplicity then they can carry on as they are, with a paper based system. But for the minimal cost (in relation the value of the animal) the rest of the industry who want to move on can do. Why does it have to be so difficult?

 

[milkloss]

Absolutely agree on every point
I't is so much easier and more accurate than writing loads of lists then transferring them to the medicine book/movement book. And signing and stickering passports. God some of you chaps must love paperwork - that's all I can say!!
If the tag says on it exactly what the chip says - then those who don't want to embrace the simplicity then they can carry on as they are, with a paper based system. But for the minimal cost (in relation the value of the animal) the rest of the industry who want to move on can do. Why does it have to be so difficult?

It doesn’t but you can be sure that if sensible reps aren’t on the case it will be.

 

[Henarar]

My point about using technology is that if used properly it saves a lot of time and money and is much more accurate with cattle.

how

This time of the year we buy a lot of cattle and if they were all tagged with an EID chip the saving in lots of peoples time would be huge.

so folk like us pay for the tags and folk like you get the benefit

I rest my case that technology should work for you and save time and money.

if you farm lots of cattle it would and I have not argued this point and as I have said you want to use it get on and use it there is nothing stopping you[apart for some other sap paying for the tags it would seem]
but tell me would you really be so keen if you only had 45 cows and there calves and a few followers and you sold the calves at weaning ?
sounds like you just want to sit back while someone else pays for no benefit

 

[Henarar]

Down here that depends who can view your herd records, I would imagine the correct answer would be a "no, but you can send the files"

from the way I read it I think anyone could put the tag number in on a computer and see what they like its all going to be uploaded together

 

[milkloss]

from the way I read it I think anyone could put the tag number in on a computer and see what they like its all going to be uploaded together

Currently with bcms you can see the details of an animal that has been on your holding only and no others. Unless you have read something somewhere I would assume it would be the same.

 

[milkloss]

It also raises the data protection act issue. If meds and sire details, age etc were to be available to others electronically (when selling as an example or recently purchased and checking the last worming) then at which point would they be available to others and how would that be permitted. In writing would be quite ironic wouldn’t it?!

So If I buy a group of stores and the first thing I do is run them through the race and scan for confirmation of movement and to see the last fluke drench. How long before I could see those records? Would it be truly instant from the moment of leaving the mart? Would it be when I have paid for them (goods belong to to the seller until paid for)?

Questions, questions. Technology isn’t as simple as some might hope, farmers tend to fall into that trap.

 

[gone up the hill]

Slow down Guth, I did warn you earlier that your arguments that pull facts from the extreme would lose you an argument.

You said:


Which to me intimates that you treat a group of cattle with a controlled drug without actually knowing their individual identity.

Get better at your debating guth and you could be useful.

That does not imply that if I treat a bunch of cattle and don't record each number it means I don't know the identity of what I have treated!

Batch recording is legal for routine treatments like wormers etc, only need to record each number if you treat say for example one animal for lameness.

My debating is fine thanks, unlike frank the wool that insults people and makes up crap ( which you also now seem to be doing )

 

[Kiwi Pete]

from the way I read it I think anyone could put the tag number in on a computer and see what they like its all going to be uploaded together

It could well be the case - I more read with the idea the system would be fairly similar to what they do here, my livestock records are mine.
If an animal showed up for slaughter and was in WHP for something declared on the status docket it would be processed accordingly (petfood probably) but if I didn't declare I would expect to be in sh!t 30 feet deep
But lineage/breeding records etc are part of the animal : a dairy cow, fully recorded, those details are all on the database and available, if you owned PHQC 14 198 then I could probably find out the sire and dam of her.
If I bought her off you, then the records would be tranferred to my comp once the sale had been sent by you, or more correctly the market/broker/agent would do all that part, you wouldn't have to do much at all, I would confirm with a click on an email box and all the files come through.

A bit of it will be different because we use LIC Minda for dairy herds and you probably have alternatives, but the systems integration is pretty bloody good really.

I am a computer dunce, feared the job TBH, and soon got it down pretty pat with culls/deaths/disposals, births and tagging etc.
The only thing that was notable in my experience, a farmer we bought 90 cows from sent 4 that were meant to be a different 4 and the system showed me exactly which ones they were.
With the drafting system we have in the milking shed I could programme those 4 cows to be drafted into the left yard tomorrow, from my laptop here.

I could do it now just to pee off the new manager's workers, he will wonder why there are 4 random cows being drafted out by the protrack in the morning
(that isn't the EID tracking system, just the fact I have Teamviewer and bet the password is still the same on the cowshed computer) but again it gives an idea of what can be done once computers can ID animals instead of needing a human to do it all.

 

[gone up the hill]

Absolutely agree on every point
I't is so much easier and more accurate than writing loads of lists then transferring them to the medicine book/movement book. And signing and stickering passports. God some of you chaps must love paperwork - that's all I can say!!
If the tag says on it exactly what the chip says - then those who don't want to embrace the simplicity then they can carry on as they are, with a paper based system. But for the minimal cost (in relation the value of the animal) the rest of the industry who want to move on can do. Why does it have to be so difficult?

Very few cattle farmers want or see any benefit of Eid, just because one system works for you it doesn't mean that everyone should be forced to do the same thing given the expense/ hassle involved setting up etc Eid.

And EID tags are NOT 100% accurate in sheep as you always get one or two in each batch that cant be read at slaughterhouses etc so why would you want to go from the current system that is 100% accurate to one that is say about 98% accurate??

Eid tagging needs to be 100% readable 100% of the time before its introduced and current EID tags for sheep certainly are not.