Welcome to DairyTrace TagTips - quick tips, helpful hints and FAQs to help you understand the most efficient ways to use your traceability tools.

Is Your Herd Inventory Up to Date in DairyTrace?

Due to the outbreak of avian influenza in U.S. dairy cattle, there is now mandatory testing for Interstate Movement of dairy cattle. While there is no traceability system for dairy cattle in the U.S., the implementation of the DairyTrace program in Canada means that we have the ability to identify an animal’s current location and where it’s been, enabling faster response in an emergency. Data that is accurate and up to date in DairyTrace means that we can respond quickly to contain disease and prevent its spread.


There’s never been a better time to make sure your DairyTrace herd inventory is up to date.  

If you need to clean up your herd inventory, there are three ways to ensure it is up to date:  


1. Through Customer Services: If your animal inventory in DairyTrace is outdated, you can provide our Customer Services team with a list of the animals you would like to remove. Customer Services can complete an inventory removal for you, or help you complete move-out events for those animals. In addition to animal ID, the premises ID and licence plate number are good pieces of information to have for completing the reporting, but Customer Services can help you if you do not have this information. 


2. Report Move-out Events: Reporting move-out events is a recommended good practice and will keep your herd inventory list up to date. Reporting move-outs helps ensure full traceability of the animal throughout the dairy system. Move-in events are required under proAction, which directly affects dairy producers. This means that if the premises your animals are going to is not a dairy farm, such as an auction mart, feedlot, show, etc., they may not be voluntarily reporting move-in events. This makes reporting your move-out events even more crucial for accurate traceability. Note: Slaughterhouses and end of life facilities are required to report tag retirement.  


3. Report tag retirement: Double check your herd inventory list and ensure you have completed tag retirements for any animals disposed of on site. 

Reporting move-out events means that:

  • You do not have to rely on the next premise to report a move-in for it to reflect in your herd inventory list. 
  • A short and accurate list of animals on-farm makes it easier and faster to report events.
  • An accurate herd inventory list makes it easier to check if you have forgotten to report any events.
  • A more complete national database aids in quicker traceback response time in the case of a disease outbreak emergency.
  • Reporting move-outs creates documented events when your animals were intermingled with others off-farm.

Reporting move-out events is a recommended good practice and will keep your herd inventory list up to date.


Watch this video for how to report move-out events through the DairyTrace portal: 

Note: If you don’t have the required premises identification number when reporting a move-out, you can include the address of the premises instead. This function also applies to reporting imports and exports.

Click here to check out the first ever Annual DairyTrace Snapshot 2023! 


DairyTrace Annual Snapshot

Do You Need to Order Tags Through DairyTrace? 


To ensure the appropriate authorization for tag ordering, you will first need to contact DairyTrace Customer Services to get set up! 1-866-55-TRACE OR 1-866-558-7223.


See the March TagTips for how to order tags once you’re set up.

Have questions or need help on the above topics? Please contact Customer Services at 1-866-558-7223 or by email at info@dairytrace.ca. For tag orders email tags@dairytrace.ca.

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