GovWire

Before you move cattle, bison or buffalo onto your holding, you must register your new or reopened county parish holding (CPH) number with BCMS. This is so that you can:

• register births and get cattle passports
• report cattle movements to BCMS
• report cattle deaths to BCMS

You must do this by law so that cattle can be traced to prevent and contain the outbreak of disease.

Read more about what you must do when keeping cattle, bison and buffalo.

How to register

1. Open the form in a PDF reader, such as Acrobat Reader
2. Download and save the form to your computer.
3. Fill in the form and save it again.
4. Attach the completed form to an email and send it to bcmsenquiries@rpa.gov.uk. Use Register as a cattle keeper as the subject header of your email.

You can register by phone if you prefer.

What BCMS will do

BCMS will register you as a cattle keeper and send you:

• a letter confirming your details are on their Cattle Tracing System (CTS) database
• barcode labels to use in passports

Youll also get a:

• reference number to use when setting up a CTS Online account
• a password for CTS Web Services so you can use approved farm software

You can use these to register cattle births and report movements and deaths online.

What you need to do next

Make sure you have also contacted the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to tell them you intend to keep cattle.

This is so that APHA can send you a herd mark to identify cattle born on your holding. Even if you do not plan to rear calves, you still need to have a herd mark to comply with the law.

Find out how to register with APHA and get a herd mark.

If anything changes

You must let BCMS and APHA know if there are any changes to your registered details.

You must also let the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) know of any changes to the details you gave when you applied for your CPH) number.

Find out how to update your holding details.