Keeping track of cattle tracing

Scottish cattle keepers will be hoping for a smooth transition when the handling of the country’s Cattle Tracing System is transferred from the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) based in Cumbria to the new database set to be run by ScotEID from October 4 this year.

From that date all cattle births, deaths and movements in Scotland will need to be notified to ScotEID which currently runs the Scotmoves system along with the country’s sheep and pig traceability schemes.

While Scotland will be the first to make the move, other administrations in the UK are also working to develop their own multi-species systems to replace the current CTS arrangements, with the aim of allowing continued speedy data sharing to enable accurate traceability in cross-border moves and UK view.

A spokesperson for the Scottish government said that since May this year livestock markets and abattoirs had been transitioning across to ScotEID and the new Scotmoves+ system. “We are now preparing fior the important step of transitioning all Scottish cattle keepers ”

But while the new system will be able to provide the facility for the tracing of cattle via an electronic ear-tags, no firm date has yet been set for the additional changeover which will see the system move to entirely electronic eartags.

Many producers are already used to using ScotEID to register within-business moves cattle movements which had previously been done under the CTS ‘linked holdings’ system, through the BVD eradication programme or the Beef Efficiency Scheme.