Top tips to get your stock sale-ready this spring

Producers selling livestock this spring selling season must ensure they meet integrity requirements, so their animals are able to be sold.

This includes their requirements under the Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) program and the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS).

To meet your integrity requirements and ensure your livestock are sale-ready, you should:

1. Ensure you are LPA-accredited

To access LPA National Vendor Declarations (NVDs), you must be LPA-accredited.

While LPA accreditation is not mandatory to sell livestock, many buyers throughout Australia including saleyards and abattoirs require you to be LPA-accredited to sell livestock to them.

Check your LPA accreditation is up to date by logging into your LPA account. To access your LPA account, you must now link your LPA account to your myMLA account and then sign in using myMLA. Find out more about logging into your LPA account or linking your account to myMLA.

2. Know how to correctly complete your LPA NVD

LPA-accredited producers can use the fast and free eNVD system to consign their livestock or purchase hard copy NVD books through MLA’s new catalogue of products and services.

Knowing how to complete your LPA NVDs so they are clear, complete and correct is essential. Watch this video to learn how to complete the LPA NVD correctly or learn how to use the eNVD system to complete an eNVD.

Having accurate farm records is key to completing your NVD correctly, as these records provide the evidence that your on-farm practices meet LPA requirements. See more information, tips and tools for good farm record keeping.

3. Prepare your livestock for transport

Ensuring that livestock are fit to transport and experience minimal stress and contamination during assembly and transport is one of the seven requirements of LPA accreditation.

To meet this requirement, you must:

• keep detailed records of livestock movements
• only select animals for transport that are fit to travel according to the national Fit to Load guide
• inspect vehicles prior to livestock transportation
• enforce pre-consignment curfews for livestock destined for slaughter
• choose transport operators that operate in accordance with a recognised quality assurance program
• prepare bobby calves for transport in accordance with the Bobby Calf NVD.

A factsheet and checklist to prepare livestock for dispatch is available on the ISC website for more information.

4. Identify and track your livestock’s movements with the NLIS

All animals leaving a property identification code (PIC) must be identified with an NLIS-accredited device before moving unless a permit is obtained from the state or territory authority. Read more information on tagging requirements for cattle, sheep and goats.

You should check all livestock are identified with the relevant NLIS device well in advance of loading. It is recommended that you keep spare NLIS devices, including post-breeder tags, on hand in case livestock do not have a device fitted to them. More information on post-breeder tags.

If livestock are bought, sold or moved through a saleyard, the saleyard must record this livestock movement in the NLIS database. For private sales – those that do not take place via a saleyard – the buyer/receiver of the livestock must record the livestock movement onto their property.

As the vendor/sender of the livestock, you are not obligated to complete the livestock transfer off your property, but you should always check the movement has been made in the NLIS database.

Reading the tags of livestock to be sold or moved and to complete a beast enquiry on the NLIS database allows you to check if all animals are currently registered to your PIC. This ensures that any issues can be resolved prior to the movement, so the transfer can be correctly completed on the NLIS database.