From the Registrar - Jan L. Wassink

National Animal Identification System Update

The last week in September I traveled to Chicago, IL to attend the ID INFO EXPO 2005, put on by the National Institute for Animal Agriculture. The purpose was to update everyone on the progress of the National Animal Identification System (NAIA).

There was a wide range of speakers, including Dr. John Clifford, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, Veterinary Services and Dr. John Weimers and Neil E. Hammerschmidt, also from USDA, APHIS. There were also speakers from Canada and Australia, numerous speakers from a wide variety of livestock associations as well as industry representatives from companies that hope to supply materials or equipment for the NAIS.

In a nutshell, llama owners should get used to the idea (if you haven’t already) that there will be a national id system and we will be part of it. Right now, the indication is that only llamas that “commingle” with other animals will need to be micro-chipped. That means that if you have a companion llama at home and do not take it off your place, you will not need to have it micro-chipped. If, however, you take it to the veterinary or to the county fair, or packing where you may join up with other pack llamas or encounter other livestock at the trail head, theoretically, you would need to micro-chip your llama.

The word at the moment is that llamas that have already been micro-chipped will not need to be micro-chipped again, even though the new microchips must meet the current international standards and the old chips do not meet those standards. The APHIS representatives indicated that they expected the new micro-chips to be available in a couple months but that probably means that they might be available sometime after the first of the year.

If you need to micro-chip some animals soon, I would recommend that you just go ahead and do it, using the old chips. However, if you do not have to do it right now, I would wait a little longer until the new chips come out. That way you would know for sure that you will not have to replace those chips.

The ILR office is beginning to modify our software and lay the ground work so we can implement this new system with a minimum of inconvenience to llama owners. One of the first things that will involve is modifying our database so we can record “National Premises Identification Numbers.” A National Premises Identification Number is a “nationally unique number” . . . . that will be assigned “to each premises (location) involved in animal agriculture. The premises number will not change when a property is sold.” If you have animals at two different physical locations, you will be assigned a unique number for each of those premises. If you already have a premises id number(s), feel free to let the ILR office know what that number is at anytime and we will record it in our records.\ If you do not yet have a premises id number, you can go to http://www.usda.gov/nais to check if you will need one and how to go about getting one. We would give you instructions here but each state is responsible for the livestock premises within their own borders so each one is doing it in a slightly different way. We are not aware of a deadline to get a premises id but if you are going to need one anyway, you may as well do it when you get a few moments. This is about all we know about the NAIS at the moment. We will keep you posted as more decisions are made and we become aware of new developments.