New ear tag design overcomes common problems

FW Reporters

Thursday 09 May 2013 11:57

Improvements to ear tag design by a leading Scottish manufacturer look to have countered some of the key welfare and tag retention problems experienced by sheep farmers.
An all too common complaint among those applying tags is the pin bends on contact with the ear and therefore does not pierce the ear properly and does not close. When this happens the tag is often wasted and worse, the sheep can be left with a wounded ear.
Roxan ID claim to have solved this problem with a new improved design around the new "Senior" pin in their Tagfaster range of ear tags for sheep. At the fixed end of the pin, a design improvement holds the tag securely in the applicator meaning that it is much less likely to flex and the pin is therefore driven straight through the ear and into the receiving clamp.
Roxan claim a further Tagfaster design improvement, their patented spring-loaded tag hinge, results in a tag which is less likely to pinch the ear. Pinched ears, where the tissue is caught in an over-closed ear tag, can cause pain and inflammation in the ears of sheep. When this happens the sheep may rub their ears against fences, for example, with the risk of further ear damage and possibly tag loss.

Brian Eadie, Roxan managing director, said: "It is not only sheep that can benefit from these design improvements that we have made. The pins in our double-tag sets can be colour-coded to correspond with year of birth, flock, heft or breed, which is particularly useful in a situation where a non-eid coloured tag is lost, leaving only the yellow eid tag in the other ear.
"If the tag was plain yellow, it would be impossible to tell what colour the lost tag from the other ear had been. The coloured pins in the yellow double-set tags eliminate this problem and make it easier for the shepherd to visually identify which batch a sheep belongs to.
"All in all, we are trying to ensure that the tagging process is as efficient and painless as possible for both farmer and animal and this new pin is certainly a large step in that direction."

Source: http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/09/05/2013/138987/new-ear-tag-design-overcomes-common-problems.htm#.UYzBVXBxhzA?cmpid=NLC|FWFW|FWNEW-20130510|dali