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NLIS For Sheep & Goats

NLIS (Sheep & Goats) is Australia's system for the identification and tracing of sheep and farmed goats.

By Department of Primary Industries - 31st May 2006 - Back to News

The sheep and goat industries, with the support of State and Commonwealth Governments, agreed to introduce the NLIS (Sheep & Goats) from 1 January of this year.

Sheep and goats born before 1 January 2006 will not need to be tagged until 1 January 2009. After this date all sheep and goats will need to be identified before leaving their property of consignment.

The scheme allows the industry and government to meet standards for traceability required for export, and maintains market access to many countries. NLIS (Sheep & Goats) would also allow for rapid tracing and control if an exotic disease entered Australia. Requirements of the new system are:

• All properties running sheep or farmed goats must have a Property Identification Code (PlC).
• Consignors must provide an NVD (National Vendor Declaration) when dispatching sheep or goats of any age to a saleyard, abattoir or another property (with a different PlC).
• All sheep and goats born after 1 January 2006 must be identified with an NLIS Sheep Breeder Tag before being dispatched to a saleyard or to another property.
• NVDs supplied by consignors must be retained for seven years.
• Consignors of sheep and farmed goats that are already tagged with an NLIS Sheep Tag must either record on their NVD all PICs printed on the NLIS Sheep Tags attached to the consigned stock, or attach a pink NLIS Sheep Post‑breeder Tag to each animal.

The eartags are not sold or ordered through DPI, although we do have a list available of approved tag manufacturers. In almost all cases your tag supplier or stock agency will be able to arrange this for you.

The tags come in several types and can be attached to either ear. There is a recommended colour for each year of birth, with red allocated for 2006 and blue for 2007. Unlike NLIS cattle tags they cannot be read with an electronic scanning device.

For more information contact your local DPI office or the helpline on 1800 678 779 during business hours. Alternatively, visit DPI's website of www.dpi.vic.gov.au/nlis

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com