With any flock of sheep comes a certain amount of paperwork. Some of which is required for keeping track of health, breeding and the flock in general. There are other formalities to ensure that state administrative requirements are met. In general once the systems are in place, the paperwork pretty much looks after itself and updating any changes within the flock is relatively straightforward. For the last three years generating any administrative paperwork to meet the requirements has been a logistical nightmare. The failure to foresee the difficulties associated with the introduction of electronic identification particularly in relation to the Ouessant sheep has meant that many flocks have gone three years without the means to satisfactorily identify animals. This has included animals coming in from outside flocks as well as lambs born to the holding.
What a farce! In addition national requirements for flock testing for brucellosis has meant that there is a REQUIREMENT to have animals properly identified to ensure it's possible to tally up blood results with individual sheep. Added complications of the
Continual delays in the introduction of EID tags which
The flocks numbering system might be back on track in about three more years, the flock sports a variety of tags and coloured lumps of plastic. I have no satisfactory system for identifying lambs that doesn't involve retagging at a later stage and still the sheep lose their tags and now ears in fences.
A congratulatory pat on the back for finally bringing in an alternative to cattle sized tags ............what price progress.
