European regulation
On the 23rd December 2003 the European Commission set out a regulation (21/2004) to establish a system for the electronic identification (EID) and registration of sheep and goats. This legislation took effect on the 1st January 2010.
This legislation poses particular problems for the Scottish industry such as throughput at auction markets, recording farm-to-farm movements, tag retention and lairage periods for animals from remote areas.
Phase 2 of the Scottish EID research pilot will continue to focus on the effectiveness of the equipment, tag reading, transfer of data, and the developement of the database. The mathematical model which dealt with non reads within groups of sheep moving through the supply chain, will be tested using more data and more partner farms and CCP's.
