Case Study: Lifetime Traceability (Cattle)

Lifetime traceable is a status assigned to electronically NLIS identified livestock where every property of residence in an animal's life has been registered on the NLIS database.

A vendor is only permitted to tick yes to lifetime traceable, where:

  • All of the livestock in the consignment carry a white NLIS breeder device that was attached before they left their property of birth
  • No gap exists in the movement history of the livestock as recorded on the NLIS database - if livestock in the consignment are leaving a property that is not their property of birth, all transactions must have been registered on the NLIS database.

AuctionsPlus has introduced a mandatory Lifetime Traceability question on all cattle assessments, which reads:

100% of cattle in this lot are Lifetime Traceable?

  1. Yes
  2. No
  3. Unknown 
    • If NO is selected, providing details is mandatory. You have the opportunity to state why you have answered 'No' in a mandatory details field. (Examples include: LT status unknown; 3 cows have post-breeder tags.) These details will be displayed in the catalogue. 
    • If the lot is declared 100% LT, a tolerance of 0% applies on tagged cattle that are not LT and AuctionsPlus would support rejection if they buyer requested. A tolerance of 1% applies on cattle that are LT (to account for tags lost on the truck)

Traceability is gaining increasing importance - if you are unable to declare livestock purchased as lifetime traceable, a discount in price is a very real consequence.