Introduction to RFID / EID / NLIS for Livestock Management

The Old Way

W ith traditional management methods, livestock producers had no option but herds as mobs. Decisions were based on averages, and conclusions could on implemented across whole herds. The larger a herd became, the less accura management practices were.

Hours were spent restraining animals to view dirty identification tags. Transc errors were made while manually recording numbers. Countless hours were s back in the office documenting and analysing the collected information. To m things worse, action could only be im plem ented the next tim e cattle were in t yards!

The New Way

Today, individual animal management is possible. Producers can monitor the perform ance of individual anim als during their entire production cycl e. They identify inconsistencies in this data (cattle that perform outside the required even range). They can make decisions and implement their conclusions on a by-animal basis while in the race.

This enables producers to manage large v olumes of cattle with a level of eas accuracy unprecedented in the livestock industry until now.

Now with the introduction of the National Livestock Identification Scheme (N database for Australia, the benefits of using RFID (or electronic ide ntificatio known as EID) is becoming increasingly more evident. The Australian NLIS d is the largest and most sophisticated livestock database and management sy currently in the world.

The database was established in response to the Eu ropean Union's demand tam per proof anim al electronic identification and trace back system. Read m the NLIS Scheme.