IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS

With kidding season upon us and the new Federal Scrapies ID requirements I was thinking about ID systems for goats. There are many different systems available, and for goat breeders some sort of individual or group type of animal system can prove invaluable in terms of breeding and herd management. I will go into the system I use and some that other breeders have been using that I am familiar with.

I personally use individually numbered tags for identifying my animals, and I have used consecutive numbers since I started tagging. This allows me, at a glance, to tell how many does and/or bucks of a certain type have been born on my ranch since 1993. For example, as of January 2002 I have had 678 full-blood boer kids born here since I started raising them. Also with my tagging system I can easily sort the different percentages through a cutting chute. This is because I tag my animals thusly: The 1/2 boers have blue tags; 3/4 boers have white tags; 7/8 boers have orange tags; 15/16 have purple tags and 31/32 boers have yellow tags. All of these are medium female size tags. The full-blood boers are tagged with white ribbon type sheep tags. For non-registered animals I will use a different style tag of the same color that I have assigned to that particular percentage group of animals. If I have percentage does sired by different bucks in a year I take a small set of ear notchers and notch the leading, trailing or bottom edge of the tag when I tag those animals. This again allows for easier sorting through the chute.

I will even tag all of the buck percentage kids although I realize it is quite probable they will be going to slaughter. As I tag them all at birth this allows me to keep track of weight gains even in my slaughter stock. For example, I know that prior to selling them my percentage slaughter wethers averaged a little over 0.4 lbs. average daily gain on pasture only last year. I do use a less expensive temple type tag on my slaughter animals though, as it only needs to last a short while. This allows me to keep track of herd performance and gives me information that is certainly worth more than the thirty to forty cents apiece the tags cost. I write down the dams tag number and her kids numbers and can track survival rates in kids and maternal instincts in the dams. A goat who gives birth to triplets and raises none of them to weaning is certainly no asset to my herd and through an ID system I will know which goat they are.

In recent years I have begun writing on the back of the tags the date of birth, the sire and dams ID numbers and the rank of single, twin or triplet, etc. on the back of each animals ear tag. This allows me, when I am out in the pasture or pens and don't have any papers with me, to catch a goat, flip over the tag and immediately know that animals' birth info. As an example, when I'm looking at my herd of doe kids and there is one who is smaller, if I catch her and see she is a quadruplet, her smaller size is easily excused than would be a single birthed animals.

I have quite a few friends who while not managing as intensively in regards to tagging and record keeping do track their herds. Many use a simple system of ear notches to identify the different percentage animals in their herd. They may, for example, use 1 notch for 1/2 blood, 2 notches for 3/4 blood, and 3 notches for 7/8 blood animals. This simple, low cost system allows them to, at a glance, tell what type of goat you are looking at when you visit their place. And for those of you who are running non-registered herds and want to know what's what, this is quite probably the most effective system in terms of cost and permanence. I operate my cutting chute from the right side therefore all of my does are tagged in the right ear so that I can see the tag and sort them accordingly when they come down the chute.

Since my does are all registered they also have a tattooed number in their ear which corresponds to their individual tag number. This comes in handy should a doe lose her tag out in the pasture or pull it out on a pen fence. In my experience regardless of claims by the manufacturers I've yet to find a "permanent" goat tag. If a goat doesn't lose it before, around 5 years of West Texas sun is about all any of them can stand before they become brittle and break off. And those tattooed ears are worth all the hassle it takes to do the job of tattooing them when they are young.

As far as ink color for tattooing I have had the best luck with the green colored paste type ink. A word to the wise on tattoo procedure is to fill a spray bottle with alcohol and spray the applicator and the inside surface of the ear each time to prevent infection from setting in. I learned this the hard way after having a serious bout with gangrenous ears one year. And while we were able to save all the ears, all the tattoos wound up illegible due to scarring, so keep it clean! It also proved out to me that the best time to tattoo your animals is between the last quarter of the moon and the new moon. The tattoos seem to stay the same size and remain highly legible even years later.

Another ID method I use is to tip the horn of a doe with lopping shears the first time she misses kidding. The next time she misses I will tip the other horn, then when the time is right to sell them I can easily sort them out of the bunch with no paper work in hand. All of the different color tags come in handy because after kidding and everyone is tagged I will consolidate my herds for ease of management and to ease grazing pressures on some of my pastures. There is right now in one pasture approximately 200 head of replacement doe kids of all percentage boer, up to full blood, yet no confusion as to who is what percentage.

While it doesn't serve as an individual identification, cheek, nose, or ear branding using either the fire or freeze branding techniques, and horn branding using the fire branding method all work well for tamper proof, highly visible ownership ID and can be used in conjunction with any other means.

Any and all of the listed methods of identification can be valuable tools when matched with another record keeping system to track herd and/or individual animal performance. Through performance tracking we can see what type of progress we are making in our herds. As breeders it should be our goal to make herd improvement an ongoing effort. I personally like to urge you, the breeders, to try some of the methods used in this article as they vary enough to accommodate almost any managerial style. Some of the more permanent may even help you get your goats back if they get out as goats are inclined to. And the more visible means of ID may even serve as a theft deterrent in those areas where livestock theft may present a problem. Hope the above article gives you the American goat producer some ID ideas and good luck goating. And by the way if you're not an AMGA member, we would be happy to have you as one.