Animal Health Matters: Tags and traceability
“43VWX7235.”
This cryptic code scrawled in big red letters on the whiteboard in the animal health board office seemed like it was taunting Dr. Jacobson. The code was taken from a steel tag that up until two weeks ago had resided in the ear of a cow. That particular cow set off a multi-state investigation after her slaughter inspection at the cull cow plant revealed tuberculosis.
Dr. Jacobson was feeling the stress. Having left his mixed-animal practice six months ago for a staff position at the state animal health board, he never expected to be playing detective – or that it would be so difficult. He hadn’t encountered tuberculosis cases in practice, and now he had a front row seat to the intricacies of animal disease traceback. The stakes were high. Every day that went by without finding the source of the disease meant another day the bacteria could spread to other animals and herds.
The roadblock to Dr. Jacobson’s efforts was put in place by that ID number assigned to the tuberculosis cow. The cow’s owner remembered the cow had been purchased from a herd several states away some time ago. Trouble was, paper copies of the health papers from that purchase revealed no such 43VWX7235. Maybe the cow came from another of the ranches that supplied this operation back then? Goose egg there too. The migraines were only starting for the veterinary official. Wherever this cow came from, there were likely others infected – some almost assuredly dispersed to other herds already.
Dr. Jacobson had written enough interstate health papers during his practice years to understand what probably happened. When you run dozens of cows through the chute, visually read their metal ear tags, write each cow’s 9-character code down on a yellow legal pad and copy those numbers on an official health certificate, errors are inevitable. A 5 gets written down as an 8. 7235 gets written down as 7325. It happens. Most of the time these errors are inconsequential. But not this time.
Days of phone tag and dead ends later, Dr. Jacobson tracked down the veterinary clinic to which the metal tag had initially been shipped to. Eventually, the clinic figured out which of their clients got tag 43VWX7235. Dr. Jacobsen had the lead he needed. But precious time had elapsed.
The former practitioner couldn’t help but reflect on other clients he’d worked with getting interstate cattle shipments ready. Those herds had transitioned to electronic identification (EID) tags. As cows stood in the chute, tag numbers were read by a wand held up to each ear tag, downloaded to a chuteside laptop spreadsheet, then transferred to the digital health paper. No transposed digits, no legal pad splashed with manure, and a much quicker and stress-free event for cattle and people alike.
In recent months, state and federal animal officials have been preparing ranchers for the onset of rules that require the use of EID tags for some cattle moving across state lines. I’m generally not keen on new government rules. But just as cattle producers have embraced other technologies, there is merit to this shift. More cattle move more places more often than ever, meaning more opportunity for important diseases such as tuberculosis to move from herd to herd. An EID tag isn’t going to cure tuberculosis. But it will help animal health investigators find it sooner, shaving critical time off the opportunity for it to spread.
The rules are written to ease cattle producers’ transition to these modern identification methods. As such, there are a lot of cattle potentially unaffected. Animals don’t need an EID tag unless they’re traveling across state lines. Beef cattle not of breeding age don’t need one (dairy calves, rodeo stock, and exhibition calves are an exception – if crossing state lines). Cows going directly to slaughter don’t need one. Cows that already have an existing official Bangs tag or official silver tag don’t need one. Producers don’t need to purchase a reader – they can still use reading glasses and a legal pad to record ID’s if they really want to.
Contrary to some opinions, this doesn’t represent government control of a rancher’s cattle. It’s simply a way to more efficiently and accurately ensure the identity of an individual animal. It’s a step in the right direction to help our animal health officials limit the spread of diseases that could affect our animals – possibly even your own.
Russ Daly, DVM, is the Extension Veterinarian at South Dakota State University. He can be reached via e-mail at[email protected] or at 605-688-5171.
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