Re [AT] Livestock ID (census)

[DAVIESW739 at aol.com]

Well I went to the forum last night and just as  I thought a few people who 
think that the government is going to take their  little pets away from them 
are out there bad mouthing this with nothing more  than I told you so its big 
government taking control of your lives. They have  nothing but BS on their side 
they have no fact or figures or even know what the  system is all about. they 
made up their minds as to the facts and without eve  looking at the real 
facts. 
so far all of this is voluntary you can either  join or not and you won't be 
strung up by your heals if you don't. Every state  will have control of how 
they tract the animals so you will need to get with  your state guy to see just 
how your state is going to do this. Right now the  only thing in Oregon is to 
voluntarily  register your premises (farm) they  are looking at ear tags that 
can be read by a hand held device they cost about  $2.00 right now but as they 
become more available that will surely drop. We tag  our animals now so 
what's the big deal.
You don't have to tell the government  every time that you go riding off the 
premise with your horse you will need to  tell them if you sell it or move it 
to another premise for permanent pasturing.  Dog, Cat and other pets are not 
going to be tracked. Poultry will be tracked  by  by flocks not individually. 
The little guy who has a cow and a calf and  two chickens and a pig will not be 
bothered by this its for the guys who are in  the business of regularly  
buying and selling farm animals. You register  your premise and tag your animals 
and they do all the tracking. You call someone  if you are moving your heared 
or selling a cow to a neighbor they come out and  track the animal no big deal 
there we do that now with our branding program and  brucelous  tags and 
tattooing.  
As one said its all still in the  beginning stages and can change some as the 
state man said last night its  getting easier not harder as they look at the 
problems. They just want to know  where a sick animal came from within 48 
hours so they quarantine the area until  its found to be clean. They are not going 
to throw you in jail or take your  property just because you failed to follow 
some little part of the  program.
They only will have the number of the premise and number of the  animal or 
flock in their data base they won't even know who owns it unless they  have a 
sick animal and have to trace its background. 
I not getting out my  shotgun and chasing the big bad government guys off 
just yet, I'm going to sit  back and wait to se how it all comes out. 
My suggestion is that the rest of  you stop following all those rumors about 
the sky is falling and look into it  yourself go to one of these forums and 
learn something on your own. Don't go to  some off the wall website made up by 
people who think  the government is  going to take all their rights away no 
matter what it is. We need to have this  system and make it work or we will not 
be able to sell our products over seas  and that will really hurt us a lot more 
than a small ear tag. 


Walt  Davies
Cooper Hollow Farm
Monmouth, OR 97361
503 623-0460