GOT ANIMALS? REGISTER YOUR PROPERTY
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 -- 11:53 AM
With a deadline looming, many area animal owners have failed to register their properties in accordance with the Wisconsin Premises Registration Act.Appearing on Viewpoint on Tuesday, Matt Jorgensen of the UW-Extension Clark County office explained everyone who owns animals - other than cats, dogs and rabbits - needs to register their premises with the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium.
"It's the first step to a national animal trace back system," Jorgensen says. "If we were to have some sort of disease outbreak, we'd be able to tell where an animal was in its entire life within 48-hours of having a disease outbreak problem."
The Wisconsin Premises Registration Act requires anyone who keeps, houses, or co-mingles livestock to register their premises by January 1, 2006. Jorgensen says it?s important to know that ? even if you only own a chicken or a horse ? you still must register your property.
"It's not just dairy farms or beef farms. It's folks that have one or two horses, its people who have a few pet goats; those people need to have a premises ID," Jorgensen explains.
You can register and get answers to frequently asked questions at [url=http://www.wiid.org]www.wiid.org[/url]; you can also call the Extension office at 743-5121 for more information or stop at the Clark County FSA office here in Neillsville. There is no cost to register.
DATCP does have the authority to levy daily fines, restrict market access or limit indemnity payments to producers who don?t have IDs.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.