05/02/05 Animal Identification Symposium

Livestock producers and animal health officials have until this Friday to pre-register for the May 17th Animal ID Symposium in Boise. Northwest Pilot Project coordinator Julie Morrison says this meeting brings together a comprehensive group that will be taking a hard look at the issues facing animal id in the Northwest. MORRISON "And we'll use the results from our pilot project as basically the ground work that will show how things are working, what is working, what isn't working." Several months into the project what's working so far? Morrison says they've found that they can use group identification on cattle at the cow-calf level that can be converted into individual animal id at the first point those animals are co-mingled, say in the feed lot or at a sale yard. MORRISON "And we've been able to link the individual animal number with a group number and it still provides the complete trace from birth to death. But it's a little more practical sometimes for some of our cow-calf producers to be able to use that group lot identification." The May 17th symposium is free to NWPP participants and cooperating state agency officials but again they must pre-register by May 6th. More info and registration forms are available at www.northwestpilot.org. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott