Some producers still don’t have premise identification even though it’s critical in emergencies, says an inspector with Livestock Identification Services.
“If your information is not in the system, there’s no way the Chief Provincial Veterinarian will contact you or know that you exist,” said Chad VanderMeer.
That’s critical if there’s an infectious disease outbreak or other critical situation, he said.
“For example, there was a foot-and-mouth scare in the Olymel plant in Red Deer in 2010,” said VanderMeer.
“What they can do is put an overlay and layers on a Google map image and they can determine which route the truck took into the plant. When they start mapping, they can see how many operations can be affected along that transportation route and who they would have to contact if there was a foot-and-mouth disease that showed up in the hogs.”
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Standards good enough meet the definition of “humane” animal transportation still vary widely between what what industry wants, what animal rights advocates want and, between the two, what federal regulators decide is good enough.
Premise identification has been legislated since 2009 and VanderMeer encouraged producers to register if they haven’t yet done so and update their information if they move.
“It’s written in the legislation that if anything changes, you’re supposed to update your premise account within 30 days,” he said.
Individual animal identification is also important for tracing it through various stages of production. Every year, the agency records more than 200,000 commerce-based livestock movements — and now has more than 130 million such records, making it the largest livestock database in North America, with over 250,000 clients in it.
VanderMeer also cautioned producers to be accurate when age verifying their calves.
“There have been several instances where the feedlot suffered the consequences of a cow-calf producer who wasn’t diligent,” he said.
The only time tags should be age verified is when they are actually about to go in a calf’s ear.
“Tags are as good as they were the day you bought them,” he said. “You can still use the tags you bought five years ago, as long as you don’t put an age on that tag until it is in a calf’s ear.”
VanderMeer heard from a feedlot owner who had been affected by producers who tagged their animals with tags that gave incorrect birth dates, making the animals appear older than they actually were.
“A cow-calf guy who doesn’t understand the system can cost the feedlot producer,” he said. “I’ve personally been involved in three different scenarios with feedlot guys losing money. A couple of guys knew whose cattle they were, so they wouldn’t be bidding on those cattle again.”
