Completion of your herd register
Information related to a herdowner's obligation when completing their herd register.
Filling out your herd register
- Remember to keep your herd register up to date and accurate.
- Animals should be listed in order of date of birth or movement into your herd.
- You should record all:
- movements on/off the holding within 36 hours;
- births within 7 days in a dairy herd;
- births in other herd types within 30 days;
- deaths within 7 days;
- date of replacement ear tag within 36 hours.
- All entries should be printed clearly and should be made in ink.
- Keep the register in a safe place.
- The register should be made available for inspection upon request by Department Staff.
- Keep the register for a period of at least 10 years from the last entry. This also applies to computerised records.
Eligibility of cattle for slaughter for human consumption and herd register inspections
- Separate public health legislation requires cattle slaughtered for human consumption to be under 30 months of age.
- The date of birth which the herd keeper records on the notification of birth document (MC1) is also recorded on our central database (APHIS - Animal and Public Health Information System).
- There are instances where the date of birth on the original MC1 is not fully supported by other evidence e.g. a carcase presented at a meat plant with more than 4 hard teeth.
- In these circumstances the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) will carry out a herd register inspection. This herd register inspection must indicate that the animals are listed in the order of date of entry into the herd (in other words recorded as the animal enters the herd).
- If entries into the herd book are not in the correct order it may fail to pass this herd register inspection.
Electronic herd registers
The same principles of inspection apply to electronic herd registers, however any alterations/additions made to the electronic herd register must be available to the inspector. This can either be done by:
- Copying a printout of the herd register on at least a monthly basis and have it date stamped at your local Divisional Veterinary Office (DVO)
- Using a computer software programme, which is accepted by DARD as being contemporaneous.
Further information is available under herd register softwareand on the Rural Portal.
Failure to complete herd registers
Failure to correctly complete your herd register may result in a status being applied to the animal on the database, which restricts the movement of the animal, contribute towards the calculation of a herd restiction and may affect its eligibility for slaughter and payment of subsidy. It may also affect live export to Great Britain.
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