Replacement Sheep Tags

Old Tip

Member
Location
Cumbria
I hope some of you can shed light on the rules for replacing sheep tags, I don’t buy many breeding sheep in but was of the understanding that if one lost a tag you replaced both with new red tags and recorded the number. But the other day I was told that the red tags were only for home bred animals and you needed a copy of the original number for a bought in animal.
Any clarity would be very helpful, tried looking on the DAFTA site but am even more lost

Confused of Cumbria
 

AftonShepherd

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Ayrshire
Can't help with Cumbria, but in Scotland reds are definitely only for bought in animals. I just ordered some from Shearwell and I'm quite sure it emphasizes that on website. If you go on there and choose England I'd expect the rules to be quoted for you.

I think we may have the option of ordering a replacement tag with the original number but have never tried as it's both dearer and less convenient.
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
I hope some of you can shed light on the rules for replacing sheep tags, I don’t buy many breeding sheep in but was of the understanding that if one lost a tag you replaced both with new red tags and recorded the number. But the other day I was told that the red tags were only for home bred animals and you needed a copy of the original number for a bought in animal.
Any clarity would be very helpful, tried looking on the DAFTA site but am even more lost

Confused of Cumbria

Whoever told you that needs to go learn the rules.

Continue as you understood, and as you were doing, and ignore this persons 'advice'.
 

Mc115reed

Member
Livestock Farmer
Just gonna put this out there and hope nobody reports me for an inspection 😂 I just cut remaining tags out even if they just won’t eid scan and put 2 red tags in and if I get inspected they had lost both tags 🤷🏻‍♂️ But I’m not red tractor and I don’t claim bps so apart from a fine from
Trading standards there’s not much anyone can do too me if I’m wrong anyways…
 

AftonShepherd

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Ayrshire
I was of the understanding that if a sheep had lost one tag you had to get a replacement identical to the one that was still there ie same number, if they have lost both then reds come into play.
No, from the link above

Screenshot_20211023-094011.png
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Just gonna put this out there and hope nobody reports me for an inspection 😂 I just cut remaining tags out even if they just won’t eid scan and put 2 red tags in and if I get inspected they had lost both tags 🤷🏻‍♂️ But I’m not red tractor and I don’t claim bps so apart from a fine from
Trading standards there’s not much anyone can do too me if I’m wrong anyways…

Don't worry, that's totally fine!
You should replace tags if;

1 or both are missing

1 or both are visually unreadable (the visual secondary tag MUST be identifiable by eye and match the primary electronic tag - and the visual number on the primary tag must also match the electronic number).

If when scanned the electronic number can not be read in the primary tag.



Just record the change of tags in your flock book.
 

AftonShepherd

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Ayrshire
Don't worry, that's totally fine!
You should replace tags if;

1 or both are missing

1 or both are visually unreadable (the visual secondary tag MUST be identifiable by eye and match the primary electronic tag - and the visual number on the primary tag must also match the electronic number).

If when scanned the electronic number can not be read in the primary tag.



Just record the change of tags in your flock book.
Exactly what I do, but not sure the bit in bold is a legal requirement? Not everyone is required to have a scanner so how could that be upheld if so?
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Exactly what I do, but not sure the bit in bold is a legal requirement? Not everyone is required to have a scanner so how could that be upheld if so?

If you have a scanner you're not supposed to sell a sheep which you can not read

As you say not everyone has a scanner which is why they implemented the rule that your scan rate has to be higher than the market you use most (so if you put all your cull ewes through Lanark and they have a scan rate of 90% for all sheep put through their scanner in a year - your ewes must scan better than 90%. If your scan rate is below 90%, you get an automatic 1% penalty of your BPS)
 

AftonShepherd

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Ayrshire
If you have a scanner you're not supposed to sell a sheep which you can not read

As you say not everyone has a scanner which is why they implemented the rule that your scan rate has to be higher than the market you use most (so if you put all your cull ewes through Lanark and they have a scan rate of 90% for all sheep put through their scanner in a year - your ewes must scan better than 90%. If your scan rate is below 90%, you get an automatic 1% penalty of your BPS)
Didn't realise that bit. I used to just write down any that wouldn't scan but tend to change them now unless I'm in a hurry 🤣
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Didn't realise that bit. I used to just write down any that wouldn't scan but tend to change them now unless I'm in a hurry 🤣

Physically writing every tag number down should get you round the penalty as you have a paper trail list accounting for every sheep. But very few farms do that and rely on the market read out - and ofcourse the market takes zero responsibility for your tags not reading.
I used to write them all down, and replace anything I couldn't read but it took what felt like forever going through a pen of ewes.

I've now got a scanner and replace what it can't read (think I've done 1 ewe out of 80-odd this year)... but I don't check the secondary tag is readable any more so I could get caught for that 🤦🏻‍♂️
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Last inspection I had they didn't check if visual tags were legible. As long as they had two tags and Eid read he was happy.


They checked mine. Read with the scanner then read both tags visual to see everything matched up (God knows what would have happened if the chip number and visual on same tag were different - hardly our fault!)

Scanned anything with red tags then wanted to see in my books that I'd recorded the replacement
 

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