Electronic Ear Tag
Sheep ID Project
Objective:
Assure consumer confidence and product safety in US sheep industry through the functional and economical
development and testing of the NAIS animal ID program. Specific objectives for current and planned research
is to plan and implement a project designed to
- educate producers about the national animal identification and disease trace-back program,
- issue premise identification numbers and tag individual animals and
- collect intrastate and interstate movement data that will be used to test a 48-hour traceback system.
The existing mandatory ID requirements of the "National Scrapie Eradication Program" currently in place
for sheep is the most complete federal ID system in existence for any livestock species in the US. However,
this program is based on a visual ID system and must be modified to provide a workable means of achieving
the final tracking goal of 48 hours. Currently no RFID tracking system forsmall ruminants has proven to be
practical under the varied environmental and production systems that sheep
are being produced in, in the United
States. The goal of this project is to evaluate the potential of utilizing an electronic EID tagging system
to provide an effective, affordable system for individual identification of sheep under two management systems
common in the intermountain west.
Research: Three producers having large numbers of sheep (1000-3000 ewes) who raise under extensive range conditions possibly on public range and retain ownership on lambs were identified and a portion of their lambs identified and utilized for this project. Lambs were identified by a combination of lot ID and RFID tags and traced from birth through shipping from the ranch to either pasture and/or feedlot to slaughter.
Information evaluated in this trial include:
- Tag loss and infection rates.
- Tag reading percentage.
- Effect of animal flow and animal movement on tag reading percentage.
- Impact of multiple sites on tag reader effectiveness.
- User acceptability of reader/antennas under normal management conditions (loading and unloading facilities, on-farm).
Education: Education and training of producers regarding the individual animal identification process and is a ongoing process. A number of seminars have already been conducted with major presentations and workshops at the Montana Wool Growers Annual Convention and the Montana Ram Sale