From July 1, 2022, it will be a legal requirement on herd keepers to officially identify all newborn calves with a tag set containing an Electronic Identification (EID) tag.

As part of the move towards mandatory EID, all new cattle tag sets, sourced from approved tag suppliers, now contain a white EID tag.

Last year, details of a financial support package to assist farmers in the move to mandatory EID for cattle were announced.

Ahead of the July deadline, the livestock management company Datamars is currently running a competition offering farmers the opportunity to win a top of the range EID stick reader.

With EID tags already widely in use in the Irish sheep sector, Datamars has said that its tag reader offers farmers the opportunity to gather and store data on their livestock in a more simplified manner.

Farmers who book a consult with Datamars before March 31, 2022, will automatically be entered into the prize draw to win one of three XRS2 EID Readers.

The XRS2 EID Stick Reader allows farmers to monitor each individual animal's performance and back up critical health, mating and culling decisions by using the reader to view and capture animal information.

Some of the features of the reader include:

The reader is suitable for recording information on both cattle and sheep. It features a large screen and an alphanumeric keypad for capturing important information from the livestock.

Bluetooth wireless technology can connect the reader to a farmer's weighing scales and will greatly simplify the recording, analysing and sharing of information to a farmer's smartphone.