I know some of you are questioning how the new rule about ‘mandatory
Herd Names and animal naming’ affects you. Please read on for this
explanation.
Please let me share with you this motion made by the CAA Board of
Directors during their October, 2011 Board Meeting:
RESOLUTION 2011-92
To accept the Registrar’s
Recommendations 3 (Make the registration of a herd name mandatory), 4 (Make it
mandatory to use the registered herd name in each animal name) and 5 (Make the
placement of the registered herd name standardized to be the prefix of the calf
name (after the word RED if the calf has red coat colour), so that the herd of
origin is always identifiable).
And so what this means to you as CAA members is this:
1. Effective January
1st, 2013, each member of the CAA must register, as a Board mandated
mandatory requirement, a herd names.
2. Further, and also
as of January 1st, 2013, it will be mandatory to use the registered
herd name in each animal name. The placement of the registered herd name will
also be standardized to be the prefix of the calf name, so that the herd of
origin is always identifiable.
Now, to avoid confusion, let’s consider Hamilton Farms of Cochrane,
Alberta, as an example. Rob and Gail’s operation is called “Hamilton
Farms”; this is the actual CAA Member(ship) Name. Their herd name, and
this is what adorns each and every animal they register (unless owned in
partnership because those animals, then, have a differing Herd Name), is
HF. Finally, their registered tattoo letters (also referred to as Herd
Letters) are HAMI, although each of their sons has their own tattoo letters
(Wyatt has WYAT, Wacey has WACE, and Joel has JHF) and they, too, use the Herd
Name “HF” as the prefix for every animal they register since their membership
are affiliated with the ‘master’ membership which is “Hamilton Farms”.
The practice of junior members, or affiliate ‘herds’ using the same Herd Name
will remain through the enactment of this new policy because they do include a
registered, and, if this case, shared, Herd Name.
Starting January 1st, 2013, every member of the Canadian
Angus Association will have to have a registered Herd Name which will be used
as the first component of every single animal you register, unless the animal
is red in colour; for those animals, the word “Red” will continue to appear as
the first part of your registered animal’s name, followed by your Herd
Name. So the Herd Name will appear before the bull or cow family name on
all registration certificates printed from January 1st, 2013 onward.
Let’s look at another example. Lee and Dawn Wilson (Miller
Wilson Angus) have the registered Herd Name DMM which they have also registered
as their Herd Letters, or tattoo letters. So any Miller Wilson animal you
see has both the registered prefix, as well as the tattoo letters, DMM.
Now they also have three children whose CAA member names are Ty Wilson (Miller
Wilson Angus), Dakota Wilson (Miller Wilson Angus) and Jaelayne Wilson (Miller
Wilson Angus) using, in order, the following Herd Letters (or tattoo letters)
DMMT, DMMD and DMMJ. Like the Hamilton family mentioned above, each of
Lee and Dawn’s children register their animals with the Herd Name “DMM” and
use their specific Herd Letters for each animal’s specific, individualized
tattoo.
In reality, this decision impacts less than 10% of the total number of
animals registered in a year with the Canadian Angus Association; about 100
members currently do not have a registered Herd Name, however approximately 60%
of these memberships are Junior accounts who currently use their parent’s Herd
Name but have never had it officially registered, which we require that they
do. For those who don’t have a registered Herd Name, the Board has
decided you must have one to assist with branding and designating your animals
as YOURS and to assure that those registering cattle must adhere to the breed
association standard. This will preclude people from naming an animal
“Super”, for example, because there is already someone whose registered Herd
Name is “Super”. One of the outcomes of this decision is that, so long as
you use your Herd Name then anything can be used as the name of the animal
after it and this confusion will be avoided. Ensuring placement of your
Herd Name at the beginning of the registered animal’s name will be the herd of
origin identifier and anything after that will be considered the animal’s
name. For example after January 1st, 2013, based on the
real life examples above, we could register an animal from Lee and Dawn
Wilson (Miller Wilson Angus)’s herd as DMM HF 12Z.
We believe the mandatory Herd Name and mandatory use of such will lead to
greater efficiency and speedier turnaround time in achieving your
registration. During an 18-month period in 2010 and 2011, the Registry
Department sent out 9,187 Requests for Information (RFIs) regarding use of herd
names and calf names; we estimate these will almost entirely be alleviated by
the implementation of this Board decision.
If you have any questions about the January 1st, 2013
implementation of the required Herd Name, please contact any of the friendly
and helpful CAA employees in our Registry Department: Stacy Price, Shirley
Anderson or Ciara Buchanan; Technical Services Director Cheryl Hazenberg; Breed
Development Director Kajal Devani; Office Administrator Joanelle Fuellbrandt;
or Michael or myself. We are all committed to answering your questions,
helping you to understand the process and getting you fixed up with a Herd Name
right away if you are one of the CAA members in need of one!
Posted by Rob Smith
Feedback: cdnangus@cdnangus.ca
