Animal ID for Livestock
Animal Identification in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania has been involved with several animal identification initiatives over the past several years. One USDA funded project involved both DairyOne and Lancaster DHIA in a massive Dairy Cattle RFID tagging project. Penn State's Veterinary Extension group recently completed an animal tracing project to tag and track beef and dairy cattle from farm to slaughter. These initiatives have been completed to assist producers in finding ways to make animal identification profitable on-farm.
National Animal Identification Program (NAIS)
Depending on your situation, you may choose to participate in animal identification, the second component of the voluntary NAIS. Animal identification, whether individual or group/lot, provides producers and owners like you with a uniform numbering system for their animals to help manage them more closely.
The individual animal identification number (AIN) is unique and stays with the animal for its lifetime. This number links the animal to its birthplace or premises of origin; when combined with animal tracing, the AIN also links the animal to each premises/location that has been reported for it.
More about USDA's National Animal ID Program....
Herd Management Programs
There are a number of beef and dairy herd management programs available that integrate with RFID technology. Testimonials from producers that have utilized these programs on their dairies show that RFID has saved time and increased record accuracy, which results in increased profits. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but if you would like more information about the software that we have personally worked with, please e-mail us.
Examples of EID used in dairy herd management:
Ranch and Livestock Links - a comprehensive listing of herd management software packages
DHI Herd Managment Programs available in PA: Pocket CowCard and Pocket Dairy
Other Herd Managment Programs which include RFID technology: Herd Pro, CattleSoft
National DHIA Stance on Animal and Premesis ID
Research
Utilizing RFID Technology in Dairy Herds for Daily Herd Management and Laboratory Sample Submissions Minnesota DHIA, Valley Ag Software, and the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine
Pilot Projects - Animal ID projects conducted by The Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium (WLIC)
Tags, Hardware and Software
AIN Tags approved by USDA A list of approved tags, complete with pictures and company contact information
Beef - Beef Stocker USA A listing of over 35 companies who provide hardware and software for the beef industry.
Methods of cow identification in parallel parlors. eXtension is an educational partnership of more than 70 universities.
National FAIR tags - National Farm Animal Identification and Records
