Topic: affecting goats

Originally from: Christine Ball Hi All. I wasn't referring to owners of smaller herds knowing their own goats though Mary is quite correct with her comments concerning commercial herds. We have several very big ones now (up to 3000 head!)and they mainly use tags or leg-bands which are easily read. We need to officially identify our goats for other purposes eg. at shows/​semen collections/​milk recording checks/​veterinary scrapie visits, etc.

Originally from: Sue Burton But surely,we are discussing people with a smaller amount of animals,and surely we would be able to identify them because we know them individually?. I certainly know mine and I dont need a tag or a tattoo to tell me who they are.

Originally from: Chris I am somewhat puzzled by the comment you make "How would we identify our animals without earmarking etc" I would assume that you would know your individual animals so well that you would not need the addition of eartagging by Defra to assist you,also since you would have had some of these animals several years and they are effectively pets rather more than food animals surely recognising them individually cannot be a problem.

Originally from: Christine Ball Hello Mary. No it doesn't shock me, we are all entitled to our own opinions. I just think that to say "no" would be short-sighted. How would we identify our animals without earmarking or whatever? Cheers, Christine (GoatsUK).

Originally from: Chris I watched some puppies being tattooed I thought it was horrific so is eartagging, is there a reason why you can't have chips like the other animals do, i.e. dogs,cats,fish,budgies and horses? As you so rightly point out tags get caught, ears get torn, awful, presumably if you have a goat with a torn ear you can't show it anymore, and the chips could contain the info needed for movement etc.

Originally from: Christine Ball You would not believe the battle goatkeepers have been having to get to this compromise Mary. It was looking like we would be expected to tattoo TWO lines in the left ear to get all the info in and some of us with breeds that have small ears just knew we did not have space. Also two lines would be bound to hit blood vessels. We tattoo the right ear anyway and have done for years to register our goats with the BGS.

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.