USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) issued a report showing recent changes to the policy of providing free sheep identification tags (ID) has not had a detrimental effect on the goal of identifying sheep in the U.S.
Since APHIS discontinued providing free plastic identification tags in November 2017, a higher number of metal tags were purchased and distributed in 2018, contributing to the overall increase of official ID sales and distribution that year.
After various changes in the program since that time, APHIS now provides up to 100 plastic tags to new producers only and metal tags to markets and dealers.
Sales and distribution of metal tags in 2019 and 2020 continued to increase significantly, but are trending downward. The sales and distribution of non-metal ID (plastic and RFID combined) decreased in 2018 compared to non-metal ID purchased or distributed from 2008-2017.
Sales and distribution of non-metal ID continued to decline in 2019 but increased in 2020. The size of individual orders of official ID made by regulatory officials/markets/dealers has increased since 2018.
