Livestock movements and records

Kent Trading Standards aim to assist the farming community to meet their legal obligations by providing advice and guidance on the health and welfare of livestock.

Livestock keepers are required to keep records, including:

• movements of livestock on and off their holdings
• births
• deaths
• replacement tags
• veterinary medicines.

Movements must be reported to the appropriate agency and records must be made available on request to inspectors.

Further guidance and links

Cattle

• Guidance on movements and records
• Holding register

Deer

• Guidance on movements and records

Pigs

• Guidance on movements and records

Poultry

• Guidance on registration and records of poultry
• Poultry keepers record book

Sheep and goats

• Guidance on movements and records
• Holding register

Veterinary medicines

• Guidance on record keeping
• Guidance including template record sheets

Livestock standstills

When livestock arrive on your property, it will trigger a movement standstill. In other words no animal can move off the property for a certain period of time after the movement on. The standstill rule is there to protect against the spread of disease.

• The movement of any cattle, sheep or goats onto premises will trigger a 6 day standstill period for any cattle, sheep, goats or pigs on those premises.
• The movement of any pig onto premises will trigger a 20 day standstill period on any pigs, and a 6 day standstill period for any cattle, sheep or goats on those premises.

The standstill periods do not include the dates on which the movements take place.

For example, if cattle move onto your holding, no cattle may move off the holding for 6 clear days. So if cattle move on to your holding on a Tuesday, no cattle may move off until the following Tuesday (subject to certain exemptions).

Details of the exemptions can be found in Annex A to the General Movement Licence.

Straying livestock

It is the responsibility of a livestock owner to prevent their livestock from straying and they may be liable for damages caused by straying livestock. For more information see the Animals Act 1971.

If you see livestock straying on a public highway contact the Police on 101, or 999 if the situation is dangerous.

If livestock has strayed on to your private land such as your garden, contact the farmer to let them know. If the animals have caused any damage, this is a civil matter between the land owner and farmer.