The Welsh Electronic Identification Evaluation Project

The Welsh Electronic Identification Evaluation Project was designed to investigate the feasibility of applying electronic identification systems to Welsh livestock enterprises. Commencing in 2002, this 2-year project was delivered by Farming Connect, managed by Hybu Cig Cymru (HCC) and analysed by IGER alongside HCC.

The overall objective was to assess the viability of EID systems and provide a blueprint for Welsh enterprises. Analysis of the project was based on improvement in several areas including, traceability, legislative reporting, medicine record keeping, farm management, stock improvement, animal welfare and health recording.

30 enterprises were included in the project, of a variety of types and geographical locations, comprising of an approximate total of 13000 breeding sheep and 900 breeding cows and their followers. 22 companies were selected to tender, of which 4 were invited to join the project. Shearwell Data Ltd installed complete systems on 11 enterprises providing boluses for the cattle and breeding ewes, electronic ear tags for the lambs, weigh crates, race readers and handheld readers. FarmWorks by SDL was used as the farm management software and the Psion Workabout was used to capture the data and transfer it to the PC.