Herd Identification

As you probable could guess I follow the <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym> investigation very closely since I am in the cattle industry. Well I am beginning to see <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33163-2003Dec26?language=printer">more and more articles </a>citing the trouble they are having identifying the birth herd of the cow with <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym>. Even a presidential candidate has <a href="http://www.billingsgazette.com//index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2003/12/27/build/nation/45-dean-interview.inc">come out and talked about it</a>. There has been talk in cattle country for a few years now about a Herd Identification System(HIS) and whether we need to have one or not. Well whether we want one or not it looks like it is going to happen because of this incident.<br />n<!–more–><br />nMy problem with a HIS since the concept was first put forward is that I see no foolproof, cost effective way of doing it. Ear tags are notorious for falling out and implanted electronic ID chips are expensive to use. These shortcomings aside the industry as a whole now needs to get behind a HIS and push for it if we want to regain the confidence of the public that we are raising a safe product. I don&acirc;