Throughout 2024, the CCIA will be providing new education materials and promoting best practices amongst producers and industry stakeholders, with the goal of elevating trust and confidence in the Canadian traceability program.

The “Retention Matters” campaign will run January through December 2024, and will feature content based on five key tenets of retention – tag design, tag quality, environment, tag application, and myths and misconceptions.

This campaign, unanimously supported by the CCIA’s Board of industry members, will be one of the largest ever run by the agency.

The post CCIA launches major new tag retention initiative appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The previous incarnation was popular with producers, but the group felt it was time to make improvements.

Working closely with Verified Beef Production Plus and the Beef Cattle Research Council, it has produced a new record book that also contains useful resources. it is available to order directly from the CCIA web store. 

The post CCIA issues new edition of calving record book appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“It’s an everyday thing now — resistance is minimal,” said Anne Brunet-Burgess, general manager of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency.

The organization held its first meeting in March 1998 — and as it turned out, that same month, a cow was born on an Alberta farm that would five years later become the country’s first BSE case. But bovine spongiform encephalopathy was already rampant in the U.K. — and that was in the minds of many who backed the creation of the agency.

“We feel it’s a huge risk if we don’t do something at this point,” Julie Stitt, the agency’s then general manager, said in 2001.

Beef cattle were the first to come under the system, which is based on three elements: animal identification, premises identification and tracking animal movement. Bison and sheep were soon added, and plans are underway to add goats and farmed cervids (deer, elk, and moose) to the list of traceable species. (Goat and cervid tags are already available, but not mandatory yet. There are separate traceability systems for dairy cattle and pigs.)

While the BSE crisis demonstrated the importance of being able to track livestock, the system has been used at other times, said Brunet-Burgess.

“Sometimes it is not always outbreaks or at the highest level of public concern or made public,” she said. “A few years ago, there were problems with tuberculosis in Canada. Tags were used for tracing.”

There are some gaps in the system and a package of amendments is under consideration, covering things such as mandatory reporting of individual animal movement (instead of just groups).

But compared to other nations, Canada has a fairly robust system, said Brunet-Burgess.

“We’re definitely with the upper end of countries that are doing something about it, and everybody’s on board,” she said. “There are some countries that have full traceability. All the animal movements are reported, or at least documented. And some countries in Europe have a passport system — every animal has a passport, and every movement is recorded in there.”

On the other hand, some countries “have nothing at all” and even the U.S. lacks a federal database as traceability is left up to individual states.

“Each state is doing their own thing,” said Brunet-Burgess. “There’s very little sharing of linkage between them.”

The next big change here could be tags using ultra-high-frequency technology (UHF). They allow groups of animals to be read all at once and also have a longer range, so you can scan the entire group in a pen or when they’re being loaded. Regular tags use RFID (radio frequency identification), which has a shorter range.

In November, the agency announced it had modified its database system so that UHF “secondary” tags would link to regular tags.

However, while UHF technology is more efficient and allows for more in-depth management of cattle, it also uses a different tag reader.

“Discussion regarding the move to a new technology which uses ultrahigh frequency has been going on for over a decade,” the agency noted in its November news release.

And that debate won’t be settled anytime soon as UHF must first be approved by the International Organization for Standards. (ISO).

“Nothing will move forward on an official basis until those ISO standards are published, which is probably two years away,” said Brunet-Burgess, adding UHF tags would still need lab and field testing after that.

According to the agency’s website, producers have purchased more than 134 million tags (as of early February). At roughly three bucks apiece, that adds up — and grumbling about tags that come off a cow’s ear will also mark its silver anniversary this year.

Solving that problem may take another few decades.

“One of the things I often hear at producer meetings is, ‘Why can’t I get a tag that is perfect?’ — the definition of perfect varies from one producer to another, so I leave it broad,” said Brunet-Burgess.

“The ones we have may not be perfect, but they are the very best of what’s available in these types of tags.”

The post It’s been 25 years of livestock traceability appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Yes, you’ve heard right. Metal. RFID. Approved,” Canadian Cattle Identification Agency tweeted last month when announcing it would be selling “the first of its kind” tag.

It is made by British company Shearwell Data Livestock Systems, which says it’s the first to sell a metal ear tag. The family-owned company introduced the product in the U.K. earlier this year but says on its website it “has been trialled on farms around the country, with huge success” and has “excellent retention capabilities.”

In response to widespread complaints from cattle producers, the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) launched a study on ear tag retention a decade ago. It lasted four years and found that while retention was almost 100 per cent up to 18 months of age “the average tag retention rate for mature cows averaged 82 per cent.”

The study’s authors — who took great care to ensure tags were fastened exactly according to the specs of their manufacturer — suggested that tag loss was just a fact of life when it came to older animals.

“Tag losses increased year over year from third to fourth year and suggest lifetime tag retention may be unrealistic,” the study report states.

The study wasn’t set up to find out why tags were lost but the project manager said plastic breakdown was a factor (facilities, restraints, and weather can also be factors).

The U-shaped fastening part of the Shearwell tag is made up of stainless steel with the RFID chip “overmoulded in a plastic insert so readability and read range of the transponder are never compromised,” the CCIA says. Because of the U shape, tags need to be applied so there is room for growth (more for calves, less for older animals).

A Shearwell applicator must also be used with the tags. The applicator costs $44 and tags are $4.79 each, and come in packs of either 40 or 100.

The CCIA also said it is selling an “upgraded version” of the Destron eTag. It has “a fully moulded outer tag housing for better durability and water resistance and an enhanced locking mechanism for greater retention,” the CCIA says.

Producers have bought nearly 130 million tags from the CCIA, which also runs the national livestock traceability system. The not-for-profit is governed by a 15-member board, most representing cattle and other livestock groups.

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