Sheep, goats and pigs changing farms should travel with the official movement documentation for your country or state, completed for that move and tied to your holding or premises number and to each animal's identification. Movement paperwork exists for one central reason: if disease is found, officials must be able to trace where animals have been and where they went, quickly and exactly. That purpose shapes how it is done well: the document is completed before loading rather than reconstructed after unloading, and the keeper's copy is filed where it can be found the day an official, a buyer, or a vet asks for it.
What the Movement Record Has to Show
The documentation for a move identifies the animals and the journey without gaps. It ties the move to your holding or premises number, the official identifier under which your farm keeps livestock, and to each animal's own identification, the tag or mark that separates it from every other animal in the group. The record states the date of the move, lists the tag or mark of every animal moved, and names both the holding the animals leave and the holding they arrive at. If an animal's tag is missing or unreadable on loading day, that is a problem to resolve before the move rather than a detail to fudge on the form, since an unidentified animal breaks the trace the document exists to provide. Animals that are unwell should not be travelling at all, and paperwork should never suggest otherwise.
Both Holdings, Both Keepers, One Shared Record
A movement involves two holdings and usually two keepers, and the record has to serve both ends. The sending keeper completes their part for the departure holding, and the receiving keeper needs the corresponding information for the arrival holding, so agree in advance who reports what through which route, rather than each assuming the other has done it. Keep your own copy with your herd or flock records even when reporting happens through an official system, because your copy is the one you can produce instantly during a farm visit, a sale, or a query months later. New keepers should file the incoming record alongside the animals' identification list, so the tags that arrived on a given date can be matched to the group now in their pens.
Standstill Periods Vary, So Confirm Before You Move
Many regions place a standstill on a holding after animals arrive, a period during which further movements off that holding are restricted, and these periods vary by place, by species, and over time. Forms, reporting routes, and deadlines vary just as much, and a requirement remembered from a neighbour's move, a previous year, or another region may not be the requirement that applies to yours. Treat every specific detail as local until confirmed: before the move, check the current requirements with your local animal-health authority, and ask your vet if anything about the animals' health status affects what may move or what must accompany them. Confirming takes a short call days ahead; discovering a standstill after promising animals onward to a buyer is a far longer problem.
File the Copy Where the Flock Records Live
After the move, file your copy with the records for that herd or flock, in date order, alongside the identification list it refers to. Movement records are working documents: they get consulted when animals are sold on, when tags are replaced, when an official traces a disease report through several holdings, and when a keeper needs to prove when a group arrived. A simple habit keeps them usable: complete the document before loading, check tags against the animals as they load, file the copy the same day, and review the file whenever animals arrive or leave so gaps surface while they can still be corrected.
Paper in a farm office drawer serves one keeper at one address, and livestock records often need to travel further. Scanned into KinsLe, your flock's Pet Passport holds the documentation beside its identification list, available to whoever legitimately needs it.