Using software for cattle legislation
Complying with legislative requirements such as movement and treatment recording of cattle is vital for any cattle farmer. Demonstrating compliance to DEFRA, Trading Standards and Farm Assurance can be stressful and take time. Inspections may come with an advanced warning or be unannounced so it's important to keep cattle records in good order at all times.
Farmers need to record the ear tag number of the animal and its dam, date of birth, breed, sex, movements on and off the holding including details of where the animal was moved from and where it was moved to, date of death and more.
Details on the purchase of veterinary medicinal products must also be recorded such as the product name, purchase date, quantity bought, batch number, withdrawal period and supplier information and any future disposal information. When a product is administered the keeper must record key information such as which product was administered, the date, quantity administered and withdrawal period. Medical records, including prescriptions, must be retained for a number of years regardless of whether the animal is still alive and in that keeper's possession or not.
A farm inspector will look for a range of things within the cattle keeper's records to ensure they are compliant. Keeper's need to be able to demonstrate accuracy of birth, movement and death recordings as well as which animals are currently on and have been on the holding e.g. hired bulls, cattle sold.
Keeping these legislative records accurate and up to date is essential to being able to quickly trace an animal to the source of a problem if anything unfortunate is detected such as Foot & Mouth.
You can choose how you want to store the records, i.e. paper or on a computer, spreadsheets or using software. Official procedures will need to be followed when reporting updates e.g. notifying a birth to BCMS can be done by telephone or through CTS online using specialist software or direct access; a completed cattle movement book can be generated by software or done by manually filling in the paperwork as long as it presents the information as required. Whichever method you choose the information must be readily available should you undergo an inspection.
Many cattle software packages are designed to help farmers comply with their legislative requirements. Records stored in the software means data can be entered just once to update multiple records i.e. BCMS, your own records and, with some software, your pedigree breed society. This can save time and reduce the chances of errors. Cattle software from Farmplan can help demonstrate compliance because the keeper's records can be compared with those held by BCMS at any time to ensure they tally. It's important to choose software that makes it easy to find records whenever required e.g. search by cattle number, animals currently in a withdrawal period, movements in the last few months etc. Plus, as the records need to be kept anyway, storing a few extra details such as weight can provide valuable information to help manage the herd more effectively and assess areas for improving profitability.
For information on Farmplan's Cattle Manager software please contact us on 01594 545000 or email sales@farmplan.co.uk.