British Cattle Movement Service

The Cattle Tracing System (CTS) is the database for all cattle in Great Britain (Northern Ireland has a separate tracing system^[1]), to which farmers must notify births, movements and deaths of cattle on their holding. The system was introduced on 28 September 1998 in order to meet EU legislation requiring all member states to have a computerised tracing system by the end of 1999. There are currently four ways to notify CTS about births/movements/deaths including via the postal service using movement cards (cheque-book style passports only) and passport applications, over the telephone using the CTS Self-Service Line,^[2] over the internet using the CTS Online service^[3] or through third party software using CTS Web Services.^[4]

A4 British Cattle Passport as issued from 2011

The cattle passport has taken three forms.

• From its introduction on 1 July 1996 the passport was a single green A4 paper sheet. This showed details of the animal including its birth holding, ear tag number, breed, date of birth, sex and its mother's ear tag number. Also included were a number of sections to be filled in when the animal moved to other holdings, showing the movement date and the new holding number (holdings include other farms, agricultural shows and abattoirs). At the time of its introduction there was no requirement for such movements to be registered centrally. When this requirement was introduced on 28 September 1998, a further A4 document was issued for all existing cattle, to be used in conjunction with the green A4 passport. This was the Certificate of CTS Registration, and it included pre-paid postage tear-off movement cards to be sent to BCMS to register each movement. Movements could be registered using these cards, or electronically by using the new online CTS. Because of the limited lifespan of cattle, few green A4 passports remain in use.
• From 28 September 1998 to 2011 the passport was issued as a booklet, made in a similar style to a cheque book. This included the same information as before, but with spaces for bar-coded stickers for holding numbers, and many pages to allow for numerous movements. The prepaid cards were incorporated in the booklet as tear-out pages, so animals with this format of passport did not also need a Certificate of CTS Registration.

Chequebook-style cattle passport as issued from 1998 to 2011. (Note: this example passport's number is unrealistic, because it would be for the 89,012th calf born into the herd.)

• From 1 August 2011 the format returned to a single A4 page. The tear-out cards were omitted, requiring all movements relating to that animal to be reported electronically or by telephone. Spaces are provided on the reverse for details of up to six movements, and for further movements continuation sheets are attached.

Each format change only affected new issues of passports, leaving the old passports in circulation and retaining former reporting methods for them. Replacement passports (for example in the case of loss or amendment) are in the format which is current at the time of re-issue.

When an animal dies, the date of death is entered in the passport and this is returned to BCMS. The death may be notified electronically in addition.

If the rules for animal registration (and thus animal traceability) are not followed correctly, a passport will not be issued (this is most commonly where the deadline for calf registration is missed, of 28 days from birth). Instead the animal will receive an A4 Notice of Registration document (similar to the Certificate of CTS Registration), and its details will be held on the CTS. Such an animal may be used for breeding, but it may not enter the human food chain and it may not normally move between holdings except to slaughter.^[5]

Every bovine animal in the EU must have an ear tag in each ear: a primary tag in one ear, which must be a large yellow plastic tag, and a secondary tag in the other, which may be similar to the primary, or it may be a smaller plastic tag (usually but not always also yellow) or a metal clip. Each tag must have the cattle passport number printed or stamped upon it, and the secondary tag may also include a RFID chip bearing the same number in electronic form. Tags may also include the passport number as a barcode, and they may have a space for "management information" to be written by the farmer (for example a name).

The British ear tag and passport number is in the format UK HHHHHH CNNNNN – this has been in use since 2002, before which other formats were used. The current format breaks down as follows:

• UK (or another EU country abbreviation) – the country code (electronic readers read the UK country code as 826, in line with ISO 3166);
• H – a unique six-figure number given to each herd (usually one herd per farm, or sometimes one for each bovine enterprise on a farm);
• C – a check digit from one to seven. See below for calculation.
• N – a sequential five-figure number for each calf born into that herd (with leading zeros where necessary).

Numbering example: If a herd had the number 123450, its first three calves would have the numbers:

• UK 123450 600001
• UK 123450 700002
• UK 123450 100003

The check digit highlights a large majority of errors in reading or recording the sequential number. A single-figure error in either the herd number sequential number will not match the check digit, unless it happens to produce a figure differing by a multiple of seven. For example, a herd number of "123456" would have to be misread as "193456", or a sequential number of "00016" would have to be misread as "00086".

Similar numbering is used for sheep and goats, with the omission of the check digit (and there is no individual paper passport). The number assigned to a sheep and goat flock is usually (but not always) the same six-figure number as that assigned to a cattle herd on the same farm.

For tags in Northern Ireland, the letters “UK” followed by the unique lifetime identification number consisting of the digit “9” followed by the herd number (3 to 6 digits in length), the individual animal code (1 to 4 digits in length) and a check digit (1 digit in length), each number group separated from the previous group by a space.

Discover more about Ear tag number related topics

European Union

European Union

The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of 4,233,255.3 km2 (1,634,469.0 sq mi) and an estimated total population of nearly 447 million. The EU has often been described as a sui generis political entity combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation.

Ear tag

Ear tag

An ear tag is a plastic or metal object used for identification of domestic livestock and other animals. If the ear tag uses Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) technology it is referred to as an electronic ear tag. Electronic ear tags conform to international standards ISO 11784 and ISO 11785 working at 134.2 kHz, as well as ISO/IEC 18000-6C operating in the UHF spectrum. There are other non-standard systems such as Destron working at 125 kHz. Although there are many shapes of ear tags, the main types in current use are as follows:Flag-shaped ear tag: two discs joined through the ear, one or both bearing a wide, flat plastic surface on which identification details are written or printed in large, easily legible script. Button-shaped ear tag: two discs joined through the ear. Plastic clip ear tag: a moulded plastic strip, folded over the edge of the ear and joined through it. Metal ear tag: an aluminium, steel or brass rectangle with sharp points, clipped over the edge of the ear, with the identification stamped into it. Electronic Identification Tags, include the EID number and sometimes a management number on the button that appears on the back of the ear. These can at times be combined as a matched set, which includes Visual tags with Electronic Identification Tags.

Barcode

Barcode

A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or one-dimensional (1D), can be scanned by special optical scanners, called barcode readers, of which there are several types. Later, two-dimensional (2D) variants were developed, using rectangles, dots, hexagons and other patterns, called matrix codes or 2D barcodes, although they do not use bars as such. 2D barcodes can be read using purpose-built 2D optical scanners, which exist in a few different forms. 2D barcodes can also be read by a digital camera connected to a microcomputer running software that takes a photographic image of the barcode and analyzes the image to deconstruct and decode the 2D barcode. A mobile device with an inbuilt camera, such as smartphone, can function as the latter type of 2D barcode reader using specialized application software.

ISO 3166

ISO 3166

ISO 3166 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, special areas of geographical interest, and their principal subdivisions. The standard employs a code of letters and numbers to represent the name of a given geographical area in order to save time and energy when describing the area, as well as to reduce the risk of description errors. The official name of the standard is Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions.

Check digit

Check digit

A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. It is analogous to a binary parity bit used to check for errors in computer-generated data. It consists of one or more digits computed by an algorithm from the other digits in the sequence input.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares an open border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2021, its population was 1,903,100, making up about 27% of Ireland's population and about 3% of the UK's population. The Northern Ireland Assembly, established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the UK Government. The government of Northern Ireland cooperates with the government of the Republic of Ireland in several areas agreed under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. The Republic of Ireland also has a consultative role on non-devolved governmental matters through the British-Irish Governmental Conference (BIIG).

The check digits for cattle ear tags are calculated by dividing the number obtained from the herd mark and animal number by 7 and adding one to the remainder. For example, if the UK herd mark is 303565 and the animal number is 01234, the check digit is calculated as follows:

• 30356501234 MOD 7 = 3
• Take answer above and add 1 so 3 + 1 = 4
• Check Sum is therefore 4
• Final ear tag is UK 303565 401234

The formula below will calculate the check digit in a spreadsheet, where UK herd number = x, animal number = y, and x and y represent cells in the spreadsheet.

Check digit = ((x*100000+y)-(7*(INT((x*100000+y)/7))))+1

In practice this process gives a check digit for the first animal in the herd, which then increases by one for each sequential animal number, cycling from one to seven.