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When our lovely new goat aggie arrived she only had one ear tag so whilst nosying round the forum for tagging info and tag recommendations I came across a few threads on these inspections.

I guess I'm naive I thought they only inspected big commercial farms! It wouldn't be an issue if they did visit us I only have two goats and paperwork is all ok and up to date (I think!) and tags now too! But I am one of life's worriers so wondering how often small holders are visited? Have many people on here been visited? If I did have a small error in paperwork would it be ok? What would they look at other than paperwork?

Baileys and thanks in advance for any info!

[Humblepie]

wev  been visited 5 times in 10 yrs, 2 of those were no notice at all " just passing - can i see your feed store / paperwork?"
the only time wev had notice was for checking sheep tags and tb testing and that was only 24hrs. she would only delay for 12hrs when i couldnt catch the sheep.

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What do they check in the feed store! No problem catching the goats infact the opposite!!!
Wow five times in ten years do you have a lot of animals or a very local ah person!

[Lesley Silvester]

I was never visited at my old address in the three years I was a goat keeper. We've been here for eight years and I have a pre-arranged visit after about a year and nothing since. My paperwork wasn't up to date as I wasn't sure what I was doing so the AH person took the time to explain what I should have done and left it to me to update it all. He said he was putting me down as a low risk farm, which amused me as I only have a back garden.

[lachlanandmarcus]

They like doing smallholdings, it's an easy tick on their list!


We've had one inspection and also were randomly chosen for brucellosis testing for our sheep this summer. They are very hot on food storage, make sure any pet or chicken foods are well away from any sheep or cattle feeds and all bins are vermin proof and labelled and keep the feed bag labels. They take samples of feed to test for cross contamination.


The important thing is that anything they pick up on you are receptive to sorting I think, thankfully I had a couple of days notice :-))

[Humblepie]

once to check the feed store (there are very strict regulations with feed), once to check the ear tags, once to check the paperwork when a buyer never returned her movement documents and twice for tb testing.
we were just a small farm, with a few cows, goats, sheep, poultry etc

i dont mind people coming but a few hours notice is nice, especially when they expect to sit at your kitchen table ( )

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Sounds like they are reasonable, all feed is stored in individual bins but neither labelled or labels kept but I can do that now. Sounds like after four years and no visit we should be organised just in case!

I hope paperwork is ok we made one error but everything is traceable. It wouldn't tke long to check my two goats but I don't have a kitchen table!I guess I would get notice as I work full time so unless they came on a weekend would have to book.
thanks all for your responses it doesn't seem I should be losing sleep over it.

[plumseverywhere]

Absolutely don't lose sleep over it!  We've had one visit in 4 years, a pre-booked visit from a really helpful lady. Upon leaving she said "I can see I have no worries here..." and she commented on how well cared for the animals are.
We've not had Trading standards pop in for soap checks yet either but I've voluntarily told them we are here, running a small business and they are welcome for coffee any time.
Just relax, all will be fine 

[Anke]

Sounds like they are reasonable, all feed is stored in individual bins but neither labelled or labels kept but I can do that now. Sounds like after four years and no visit we should be organised just in case!

You do not have to keep feed labels unless you are registered with any of the meat schemes and/or are selling meat/milk etc to the public.

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thanks guys what a lovely helpful forum  im guessing for my two pet goats and poultry they probably aren't massively interested in my feed labels! we don't sell eggs or anything (you can tell by reading this we are the worlds least productive small holding!) but we do hatch and sell hens/turkeys/geese and also grow a lot of veg. Will stop worrying I just get an idea in my head and run with it! my OH says I worry if I have nothing to worry about!

[Humblepie]

You do not have to keep feed labels unless you are registered with any of the meat schemes and/or are selling meat/milk etc to the public.
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when our  farm was running full-time as a business and we were selling a fair bit of meat and livestock - we did keep records of feed, batch numbers etc as a local farmer told me too (he was scotch-assured) but now the farm is just a hobby again we dont bother.