Animal Identification, Registration and Movement

This page contains information related to the Identification, Registration and Movement (IRM) of animals.

The identification and tracing of animals for veterinary purposes is of crucial importance for the control of infectious diseases.

There are detailed rules for identifying and registering animals.  These vary according to species and cover the need to use ear tags, herd registers, flock registers and movements documents.  A key element is the Animal and Public Health Information System (APHIS) which is a database held by DARD.  It holds information relating to cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and birds.  It is critical that the data held on APHIS is accurate because it is used to:

(a) Operate disease control programmes, for example, TB, Brucellosis and Aujeszky’s Disease

(b) Rapidly trace movements in the event of an exotic disease outbreak, such as Foot and Mouth Disease and Bluetongue

(c) Provide public health and trade assurances for the safety of our meat and pork

(d) Ensure cross compliance requirements are fulfilled to meet the requirement of Single Farm Payments (SFP)

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