U.S. Cattlemen’s Association: electronic ear tags shouldn’t be mandatory – Voice Of Muscatine

The president of the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association says an electronic cattle identification system shouldn’t be mandatory for all U.S. cattle.

As the U.S. cattle industry looks toward the widespread adoption EID tags, Justin Tupper says only breeding cattle should be required to have them and metal identification tags don’t have to be phased out.

“A metal bangs clip could easily be updated to an electronic bangs clip that’s put into cows and we’d have the cow herd identified in less than 10 years and we could move at the speed of commerce.”

The USDA is proposing a phase out metal clip tags and replacing them with Radio Frequency Identification tags in an effort to improve the movement of certain cattle and make it easier for disease traceability, but no final rule has been released.

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