Age verification is catching on among cattle producers in Canada.
Thousands of producers have submitted information about the age of their livestock to the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency’s central database and many others are showing interest.
“Producer interest is very high,” said Nadine Meade, the CCIA’s database and office manager. “Ninety percent of the calls we’re getting are questions regarding age verification.”
About 14,000 producers have submitted age information to the CCIA, accounting for 850,000 beef and dairy cattle and some bison.
Age verification is important for trade to determine whether animals meet the age requirements for export. The United States only accepts cattle younger than 30 months.
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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency recently confirmed that age verification would trump dentition for domestic and international purposes, Meade said.
Livestock producers may submit birth dates or the first date of calving for proof of age. Those who submit according to the first date of their calving season need to consider how that will reflect on the age of their calves.
“If calving started on March 1, for example, and you’ve got animals that were born in April, they’re going to show up as being born on March 1,” Meade said. “It makes them a bit older than they actually are.”
About 84 percent of the information that has been submitted is based on birth dates, partly because dairy farms and purebred beef cattle operations can retrieve that information from their records.
Of the age information submitted to the CCIA so far, 29 percent has been for calves born in 2005. Thirteen percent is for calves born in 2004 and the rest is for livestock born as early as 1995.
Submission of birth date information is voluntary. The age information is linked to the animal’s unique tag number under the national ID program.
