For cattle identification, the most common reasons were:
- Failure to report a cattle movement
- Failure to report a death of an animal
- Movement details not recorded or incorrectly recorded on the Cattle Tracing System (CTS) or in farm records
- Lost tags not replaced or animals not tagged
For sheep, the most common reasons for cross compliance inspection failure were:
- Failure to record births or dates of first identification
- Failure to enter all or some sheep movements in on-farm records
- Failure to enter all the correct information about sheep movements – particularly individual numbers
- Failure to record details of deaths or re-tags
- Failure to comply with the annual inventory
EID – Stand out from the herd with accurate sheep records
Wouldn’t you agree that these problems are totally avoidable? While a rigorous paper-and-pen system is, of course, able to record all the required information, the use of computer software has the following advantages:
- Pre-defined data entry screens let you record births, deaths, movements, etc quickly and easily
- Modern farm software worth its salt should let you use a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet to record information “on the go”. Noting down information on scraps of paper or relying on your memory will inevitably lead to inaccuracies or events being forgotten
- When it comes to farm inspections (don’t they always happen at short notice?), stress levels can be dramatically reduced if you can produce all the required reports and farm checks at the “touch of a button”
If you add electronic identification (EID) to your software system, then statutory recording becomes even easier, particularly in the case of sheep (electronic tags now mandatory) where the headage counts are usually higher than cattle. Recording births, deaths, retags and movements by scanning the animal’s tag is faster and more accurate than having to clamber into the pen or race to manually read the tags (after first scraping off the mud…).
You can view the cattle and sheep cross compliance results for yourself on the Gov.uk DEFRA page.
EID – Stand out from the herd with accurate sheep records – Give Orchid a call on 01536 443300 to find out how we can help you banish the nightmare of the cross compliance inspection with our easy to use, easy to maintain sheep software.
Orchid Farm Tech – FarmWizard Specialists – Dairy Software – Beef Cattle Software – Sheep Software – Farm Resistant Hardware – Farm Software Support
Tel: 01536 443300 Email: info@orchidfarmtech.co.uk