The business adopted the EID tagging policy before NAIT was introduced. The company agreed with the scheme now being obligatory for all cattle – and deer – owners. The combination of EID and visual tags allowed it to identify poorer performing animals and change their grazing regimes accordingly.
While Mainland had become an accredited NAIT information provider, able to make movement notifications on behalf of clients, its opinion was there was still some confusion among farmers about stock movements and the course of action required if an EID tag was lost.
The company had met NAIT officials this year to discuss such issues. It believed NAIT was making efforts to work through them.
“With any new system there’s always going to be the odd issue that arises, but if we allow for that and everyone gets on board, we see this as for the greater good of the industry.
“NAIT gives our clients the confidence that the animals they are grazing have an inbuilt animal history that they can rely on,” David Hannah said.
Based in Christchurch, with five technicians throughout the South Island, Mainland arranges and manages cattle grazing for corporate and private farmers, monitoring cattle performance and growth rates during the grazing period.
Both graziers and those sending the animals for grazing have obligations to record the animal movements between farms.
An accredited information provider can do this but responsibility still lays with either party, so checking notifications have been made is advised.
If an EID tag is lost, most farmers will have a duplicate visual tag to identify it. They can then order an EID tag with the same visual number. The new radio frequency identification (RFID) will be different, so the stock owner needs to contact NAIT so they can link the old RFID to the new one.
If the grazier’s property is in a movement control area, they are legally required to arrange a pre-movement bovine tuberculosis (TB) test within 60 days of shifting any animals off-farm.
TBfree Otago committee chair man Ross Wilson said it was important to remember that animals could not be tested within 21 days before or after calving.
Graziers should also complete a TB risk assessment before accepting animals on to their property.
OSPRI New Zealand, which manages the NAIT and TBfree NZ programmes, is offering NAIT workshops for small groups of people to upskill themselves and provide feedback on the system.
