Originally from: Christine Ball
                        
The following news has been received from Ruth Goodwin of the British Goat Society and affects ALL goats which must be earmarked according to the rules below. If anybody needs help or more info please contact me on ... Cheers,
Christine Ball.

AGRI-NEWS STOP PRESS – SOME GOOD NEWS AT LAST
DEFRA’s early summer review of the interim animal movements regime proposes that (assuming no further cases of FMD) goats, and sheep, can go to shows from 15th May 2002. Also, that there will be exemption from the 20-day standstill for individually identified breeding goats of either sex. Earmarking update: DEFRA and SEERAD have agreed that the following is acceptable: One ear: the six digit Herd Number e.g.123456
Other ear: A modified registration earmark, with the numbers first, will be accepted as the goats’ individual number, the presence of letters after the number is permitted. E.g. instead of a BGS earmark of ABC10R, you must put 10ABCR. 10 will then be the official individual number of that goat. An individual number is needed for showing, selling on twice, export, breeding movements' etc. This system avoids the need to put two rows of tattooed digits in a kid’s ear. However, if you are taking a bought-in goat to a show, which is legally not tattooed with the breeder’s Herd Number (because of its age), it should be marked with an “S”, followed by your Herd Number, followed (if the other ear is already tattooed with, say a BGS earmark with letters in front) by an individual number. This would involve two tattooing operations, or a tag.