Ear marks for livestock registration, printing method for ear mark, and identification method using the ear mark

A method of printing an Animal Registration Number on an ear tag for attachment to an ear of an animal to identify an individual tagged animal, the Animal Registration Number being controlled by a specific organization and consisting of codes including numerals, letters, or barcodes and an enlarged number to identify the individual tagged animal, comprising the steps of:

• requesting said specific organization to supply an individual farm with an enlarged number as a private number having no more than four digits, to identify an individual tagged animal on the individual farm;
• selecting said Animal Registration Number to include all or all but one of the figures forming digits of said enlarged number, from a previously prepared database of Animal Registration Numbers at said specific organization;
• transmitting said selected Animal Registration Number and said enlarged number from said specific organization to an ear tag issuing organization;
• and
• printing said Animal Registration Number transmitted from said specific organization on said ear tag and printing said enlarged number included in said Animal Registration Number in a minimum number of digits at said ear tag issuing organization.

A method of printing an Animal Registration Number on an ear tag for attachment to an ear of a tagged animal on an individual farm, the Animal Registration Number being controlled by a specific organization and consisting of codes including numerals, letters, or barcodes and an enlarged number to identify the tagged animal, comprising the steps of:

• regularly transmitting unused numbers in a database including said Animal Registration Number, the database having been previously prepared at said specific organization, to another database provided at an ear tag issuing organization;
• arranging a set of figures for said enlarged number to be printed on each said ear tag for said individual farm in a minimum number of digits to identify all tagged animals at said individual farm, and then selecting an Animal Registration Number which includes all of the figures of all of said enlarged numbers for an individual farm somewhere in the multiple digits of the Animal Registration Number from the database of said tag issuing organization;
• transmitting said selected Animal Registration Number to the database of said specific organization from said ear tag issuing organization and deleting an unused number corresponding to said selected Animal Registration Number from said database of said specific organization;
• and
• printing said selected Animal Registration Number and said enlarged number on each said ear tag in a minimum number of digits at said ear tag issuing organization, after transmitting said selected Animal Registration Number to said database of said specific organization from said ear tag issuing organization.