[Roxy]

Hopefully someone will know the answer - I am sure you will!!  I am now a bit confused......

I rang up today for EID tags for this years lambs.  I have a huge box of normal plastic tags that I use for the goats and was going to use one of those, plus an EID one for the lambs.  When I spoke to the tag place, they said the lambs did not need an EID tag until January next year, unless they were going for slaughter, and then they do.  Well, as yet, I do not know the destiny of the ewe lambs, but the ram lamb is going for breeding....therefore he will need a visual and EID tag as well.  Therefore I may as well EID the ewe lambs, so there is no hassle should they go for slaughter.  But ....the lady then said my visual tags are no use for the sheep, and I may well need another flock number for them.  I will now have to ring the Animal Health place in the morning, and see if this is so.

What I want to know is those of you with sheep and goats - do you have separate flock and herd numbers?  Personally I cannot see why my goats and sheep cannot share the one I have (and my big box of tags!!)

[Fleecewife]

The information has to be identical on both tags in any set.  This year order however many pairs you need, and you will probably be allotted 00001 numbers onwards, to go with your UK number, to however many you need.  Next time you order, you are given the next in sequence.  It doesn't matter if you buy them from a different supplier - they all have access to a central database.   Next time you order tags, you will be  given a number next in sequence to the ones you get this year (not the goat ones but the new pairs)

What they have to have for slaughter is different in Scotland and England - we just put a pair, ie one EID and a matching plain tag, in every animal, but ours don't go for slaughter until they are 16 months so need them both anyway.

[Dogwalker]

Sounds similar to the problems I've been having with my sheep and goat tags.
After the local agri store took three attempts to get the ones I needed last year I decided to go direct. Had a 45 minute call last week explaining the problem and thought I'd got it straight only for them to come printed wrong.  Another three calls this morning and I think I've found a long term solution.

Mine were getting in a mix because I had sheep and goats with the same numbers because last year when I first needed sheep tags it had to go back to 1 to start the EID series even though I already had goat tags 1 to 20.

Apparently UK 0701267 / 00016  and UK701267 / 00016 are different enough not to get muddled.
Or  UK0701267 / 00016 and UK701267 / 16.

I finally spoke to the person at Defra myself who eventually said I could 'reset' the start number for the goat tags if I signed the proper form. Which had to be emailed to the tags lady to email to me and is now waiting in my inbox for tomorrow because I had to actually get on with some work today and ran out of time and brain power to deal with bit today.

I'd asked last week if I could do that but was told not possible.  I'll get them to do goat tags starting 70016 or whatever.  I did point out to the woman at defra that I'm unlikely to have more that 50 lambs a year so I'd be dead and gone and they'd have reassigned the flock number before I got beyond 10000.

During all this phone hassle I also discovered that the slaughter tags I'd originally ordered and used for goats for the last three years had been assigned to sheep even though I didn't have any till last year.