mi goat ear tag

whmckeehan · #1 02/08/07, 03:33 PM

I bought a 9 month old doe goat at a livestock action this summer in michigan.. it has a yellow triangle ear tag with 2 sets of numbers. noone told me what they represent. the goat gave birth on christmas day with twins. a doe and a buck. all doing fine but how do I find out what info the tag holds. oh,by the way, it was suppose to have been a myotonic goat. but, so far it hasn't fainted. just me. any help?

DocM · #2 02/08/07, 03:53 PM

It's probably just the auction tag. A scrapies tag will begin with the abbreviation of your state. If you're not sure, you can call your local agriculture extention agent and ask.

fcnubian · #3 02/08/07, 10:07 PM

No letters with the numbers? My 4 I got from the auction had INthen the number. IN is for our state so they were scrapie tags. The tags I have for my unregistered stock has the IN. I refuse to use them unless I sell the goats. I hate tags they are nasty and ripped my goats ears when they had them.

circlevranch · #4 02/09/07, 06:37 AM

I'm guessing the tag was put in by the prevous owner which was his or her way of ID the doe and its kid or kids. By just looking at the number on the tag the prevous owner could go the the record book and check the track record of the goat. I don't think auction barns tag goats at least not to my knowledge anyway. I'm sure you could contact the auction barn where you bought the goat from and they would give you the name of the person who sold the goat.

haypoint · #5 02/09/07, 07:23 AM

Hard to tell without seeing it, but I think goats and sheep have to have a scrapies tag before they can go thru a sale in Michigan. Call Michigan Department of Agriculture, they'll have the answer for you. You have a couple options on your kids, should you decide to sell them. If you don't want to tag them, they can be tatooed or maybe even micro-chiped. Again, have your questions ready and call MDA to be sure.

susanne · #6 02/09/07, 08:14 AM

every goat that goes through the sales barn in michigan needs to be tagged. this is part of the scrapy program here in michigan. the number on the top MI...... is the premise id number where the animal came from. the number below is the number the animal got from the previous owner.