The cattle tag business has grown substantially in recent years on the back of continued expansion in the national dairy herd. The peak sales season has also become more condensed in Ireland with upwards of 70% of dairy births taking place from January to the end of March.

The rush to order tags has been spread over three companies in recent years following Cormac Tagging and Datamars securing approval to supply tags along with Mullinahone Co-op. Despite this, it is still a busy season.

For example, Cormac Tagging reports that it has switched to the 24-hour processing of tags since 1 December to ensure orders are completed as soon as possible.

As well as a condensed window, there are changes in the type of tags being ordered with growing demand for electronic tags. This is driven by dairy farmers using electronic technology to aid management with tasks such as automatic drafting and milk recording, while a growth in sales of automatic calf feeders is also driving demand.

There have been changes in Mullinahone Co-op with company stalwart Liam Egan retiring. Liam has seen significant changes in animal identification during his time as CEO and Paul Mooney captures some of these.

2019 has also been a year of change for the sheep sector following the introduction of mandatory EID tagging.

It is resulting in farmers having to bear significantly higher costs to comply with national sheep identification system requirements and it is welcoming to see that they may now receive some benefit from this with an increase in marts operating as Central Points of Recording.