Sheep farmers have begun to receive new dispatch document books from the Department of Agriculture in preparation for a change to the National Sheep Identification System (NSIS)

From 1 June, all sheep and lambs moving from a farm must be tagged with an electronic tag (EID).

All sheep, other than lambs moving directly to slaughter, must be identified with a full set of EID tags. Those lambs moving directly to slaughter require only one EID tag.

The new dispatch books are required to facilitate this move. Dispatch dockets in the new book are printed with a barcode in the top right corner to enable scanning of the docket's serial number.

Old books

Dispatch dockets without bar-coded serial numbers cannot be used from 1 June.

The Department has advised farmers to carefully dispose of any stocks of these books.

Farmers moving sheep to approved CPRs will not be required to fill out the individual tag numbers on the docket, only the total number of sheep

Marts and factories have the option to apply for status as a central point of recording (CPR) whereby they can record the individual tag numbers of sheep. Farmers moving sheep to approved CPRs will not be required to fill out the individual tag numbers on the docket, only the total number of sheep.

It is not mandatory for marts or factories to apply for CPR status. Those who do not apply for CPR status can continue to trade and farmers moving sheep through these premises must continue recording individual tag numbers on the dispatch docket.

A full list of marts and factories with CPR status will be published by the Department shortly.

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