Having grown up with sheep, my childhood memories are happily punctuated with bottle feeding lambs, the magic of lambing time and the enjoyment that comes from seeing those wooly clouds plod and munch their way across the fields. I have fond memories of helping my parents bring the sheep in for management tasks on the back of my pony and now as an adult, with the space to keep them, adding sheep to our smallholding felt like a no brainer. Our upland smallholding has regions of grass that are too poor in quality to graze our horses on and our property is too small for cattle so again, sheep tick the boxes. Coupled with the fact we are trying to reduce of food carbon footprint and find higher welfare meat options for our farmhouse kitchen table.
Having started to put feelers out we find a local smallholder with a flock of Herdwick sheep who was looking to sell on a few of her animals, making for the perfect starter flock for us. Now, you may think: Fab, surely then you just agree to the price and move the sheep to your fields. Job done. However, did you know that there is in fact a number of hurdles you need to jump before you can legally keep sheep on your property and then once you have them, there are still important legal bits and pieces in addition to their care requirements (which I will cover in a separate blog post - linked here when I write it!)
Why The Red Tape?
When I speak to non-farming friends about the steps you need to take in order to keep sheep, they are often surprised. So, you may too be asking yourself, why do all these additional steps need to be taken. The reason for this is two fold; disease surveillance and food chain traceability.
Disease Surveillance
Whilst not everyone will be old enough to remember the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001, the devasting impact on the British farming community lives on. The burning pyres of dead bodies, culled to pre-emptively halt the spread of infection is imagery that is burned into my brain. Being able to track the movement of liverstock around the country, or into the foodchain, allows for prompt and vital disease control measures to be put in place. This helps limit the effect of disease not only on the animal populations but also on the farmers whose livelihoods depend on the animals in question. For context 2001 FMD outbreak alone is estimated to have cost the UK in the region of £8billion. Animal traceability exists for sheep, cattle, goats, deer and pigs within the UK. It is also a legal requirement for dogs and horses to be microchipped for traceability, and legislation extending to cats is considered imminent. Whilst for cats and dogs it is more about reuniting owners with stolen or lost pets, there are disease in both and these species, and horses that can have significant impacts for people too. Horses, additionally, can find their way into the foodchain, usually in Europe so tracking animals is important.
Food Chain Traceability
It comes as no secret that many farm animals in the UK are bred with the purpose of supplying food to humans - be that with their meat or another byproduct such as milk. Ensuring animals can be traced from farm to plate means that if a problem is idenitified at any step in this process, measures can be taken quickly to ensure the safety of the public.
So. We have they why. The next question is what exactly do you need to do to legally buy sheep?
First things first, you need a CPH number.
County Parish Holding Numbers:
A CPH number is a legal requirement, regardless of the size of your smallholding, before purchasing livestock of any sort (this does not include backyard poultry or horses). You will need a CPH if you plan to keep any of the following:
- cattle, bison or buffalo (bovine animals)
- pigs
- goats
- sheep
- deer
- poultry (50 or more birds).
There are some other reasons you may need a different type of CPH number (an 8000series) and these are if you are planning to set up a slaughter house, manufacturing pet food, hosting a show ground, or keeping racing pigeons.
As per the Gov.UK website "all livestock holdings (the land and building used to keep livestock) must have a CPH number. This is so the government can trace livestock to prevent and control disease. This must be done before you move animals onto land or into buildings on your holding.
If you are unsure you can always call the Rural Payments Agency for advice. If you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland the process is a little different but links on what you need to do can be found here.
How To Get A CPH.
In order to apply for a CPH number you will need the following:
- National grid field numbers for your main livestock gathering area, as well as for any other land you will be keeping livestock on. You can find these out here.
If you rent the land you will be keeping livestock on you need to confirm if you will be renting for more than a year and whether or not the landowner already has a CPH number. They will also ask you for your contact details, business details if you have them and what animals you are planning to keep.
The form you need for applying for a CPH in England can be found here which should be sent to the email address provided on the paeg or you can call the Rural Payments Agency on
Telephone (Defra rural services helpline): 03000 200 301
Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm
Once the RPA have received the form and registered you, an email will be sent with a link you need to click promptly (within 12 hours) to confirm your email address. Once this is done you will receive your CPH number by email. You will either be issued with a permenant CPH number or a 7000 series (landless keeper) number. If you are issued with a 7000 series number then you will also need to get a temporary land association (TLA) or temporary county parish holding number (tCPH) - info on both is available here.
Apply For A Flock Number
This is essential is you are planning to keep (and breed) sheep or goats. This can be done by phoning APHA and stating your CPH. The service was very efficient. They will then issue you with a 6 digit flock identifier number, linked to your main CPH. Any new stock born on your premise will need to be ear tagged with this number. You will need to give them a rough idea of the number of sheep you are planning on keeping and what their main purpose is (so for me, for the time being around the 10 mark, mostly for pasture management with the occasional one or two sent for the freezer for personal consumption only.
Register With the Livestock Information Service
This is done via the Livestock Information Service website and needs to done after you have obtained your CPH and registered as a keeper with APHA. You can create an account with LIS here. To do this you will need you CPH number and access to the email that is linked to your CPH. Once you have registered you will then be able to record livestock movement on/off of your premises as well as births and deaths.
After Buying Your Sheep
Movement Licenses
Once all of the above is place you are ready to bring sheep onto your property. After the animals arrive you must, within 3 days of their arrival, report their movement onto your property via your account with the LIS. In addition to this, whoever you are buying from must report their movement off of their premise too. Animals keep the same ear tags, with their old flock identifier, and these details are registered onto your account. After this, anytime a sheep dies, is sold or goes missing, this must be recorded straight away via your LIS account. (if you prefer to do this via paper and posting, this is still possible at the time of writing (Feb 2023) but they are phasing the system to be online. Additionally there are options of integrated livestock management systems that will automatically link to LIS but this is likely to be an unnecessary expense for anyone keeping sheep on a small scale.
Movement Restrictions
If you move sheep, goats or cattle onto your land from a different CPH you must not move any sheep, goats, cattle or pigs off of your holding for 6 days. If you move pigs onto your land from a different CPH then you must not move any sheep, goats or cattle off of your holding for 6 days. and you must not move pigs off of your holding for 20 days.
Holding Register
A holding register documents information on all the animals you keep, including tags, replacement tags and movements. The LIS service has an integrated feature online for documenting all of this information. If you choose not to use the LIS service, this still must be clearly be documented on paper in case you are inspected. There is a template available for how to do this here.
Eartags/ Sheep Identification.
All breeding animals require an electronic tag in one ear and a visual tag in the other. There are different rules for lambs intended for meat that will not be bred from. Information from DEFRA on requirements are available here. (this advice may differ in Wales/Scotland/NI so ensure you check your geographical variations).
Veterinary/Medicine Book
All premises keeping livestock must have a vetetinary medicines book which needs to be clear and legible for an inspection should one take place. DEFRA provide guidance on what you should as follows "
You must keep records of treatment given to animals, and of animal mortality, covering at least three years. Stock keepers must also keep full records of all medicines used, including:
- where the medicines were bought
- the date the animals were treated
- the type and quantity of medicine used
- which animals were treated
You may only use authorised veterinary medicinal products, and you must record the name and address of the supplier. Although not required, it is also useful to record specific cases and treatment of disorders."
It is advisable to make a note of every intervention you take with each animal (including worming, foot baths etc) this way you can be sure you are remaining on the right side of the law when it comes to your sheep management! There are certain veterinary medicines with significant withdrawal periods, which means after they have been administered meat/milk/ eggs etc cannot be consumed for a certain amount of time. If you aren't sure of whats what, then the best thing to do is chat to your veterinarian who will be able to help you.
Register with A Vet!
And as a final note, it's important to register your flock with a veterinarian who is knowledgable on farm animals. Sheep are very good at hurting themselves, even with the best of management. Having a good relationship with your vet is imperative when it comes to having a health care management plan in place to help limit problems with preventable conditions, but also when the envitable injury situations, or difficulties lambings, do arise!
Anyway, hope this has been of some help for any newbies to the sheep keeping world. I'll follow up with some more health and management advice soon!