How traceability is Evolving in Canada

[livestock-id]

A look at the evolving traceability in Canada, and the incentive programs offer for traceability. Also continued pilots on tag retention.

The article has links to some good posts on tag retention.

http://livestock-id.blogspot.ca/2012/06/sask-government-to-fund-cattle.html

 

[Kato]

The tag retention part could use a bit of a tuneup to explain how to actually improve retention in real life, not just on paper. Our cows are tagged exactly according to specifications. This spring we re-tagged 27% of the cows.

Our bulls are all just two year olds, and were OK this time, but if they follow in their predecessors footsteps, starting this winter they will likely all be getting new tags every year. On full grown adult bulls, a good year is when one out of six keeps his tag.

I think more unbiased research needs to be done to document the real retention rate in the real world. The RFID tags were only tested for 90 days in order to qualify.

In the world of the cow, a 10 year test would be more realistic.