The main sales season for cattle tags has commenced. Calf births have increased by in excess of 300,000 head in recent years with this lift further condensing births into the first four months of the year. In the region of 1.7m calves are expected to be born between January and April.

As well as an increase in sales of tags in recent years, there is also a trend emerging of continued growth in demand for electronic tags. Demand has been underpinned by dairy farmers utilising the electronic tag for recording and management purposes.

The latest price list for the main tags are detailed in Table 1.

Cormac Tagging continues to offer free replacement tags to replace tags which it has previously sold. The cost entered relates to the tag cost where tags are being ordered that were initially supplied by another company.

There is a similar situation with Datamars but the company says that free replacements are only offered for 12 months after tags have been ordered. Datamars adds that it is retaining a lower postage charge despite An Post increasing its charges.