Sheep and goat movements: rules for markets, showgrounds, collection and assembly centres

Every time sheep or goats move on or off your market, showground or collection centre (your holding) you must:

record the movement in your holding register within 36 hours
report the movement to the Livestock Information Service (LIS) within 3 days

Following these rules means that animals can be traced at all times to help prevent and contain disease.

It’s your responsibility to follow the rules to avoid penalties such as a fine or prosecution.

You must report sheep and goat movements separately.

There’s different guidance for:

You must also apply for an animal gathering licence from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA).

Record the movements in your holding register

Anyone who keeps sheep or goats, even temporarily, must keep a holding register. You must record the movements on and off your holding in your holding register within 36 hours.

Read how to keep a holding register and what you need to record.

If your holding is an approved central point recording centre (CPRC)

Central point recording centres are premises, usually markets, that scan animals’ electronic identification (EID) tags when they arrive.

If your premises is an approved CPRC, you can:

scan the individual official identification numbers from the EID tags
give these to the sending keeper to update their holding register

Read the guidance on how your market can become a CPRC.

Report the movements

Within 3 days you must report the on movement to your premises from the previous keeper.

You’ll need to include:

all animals’ official identification numbers
total number of animals moved
the county parish holding (CPH) numbers

You must keep any paper copies of LIS-1 movement documents from keepers for 3 years.

Report as a market, collection or assembly centre

You must report movements on and off your premises online. This can be either:

online using LIS – you’ll need to create an account
through your management software if it’s linked to LIS – check with your provider

Report as a showground

You can report on and off movements by either:

A farmer taking animals away from a show will usually complete the LIS-1 movement document and give you a copy. They’ll report that move to LIS when they get to their destination.

For on moves to the showground, send a copy of the completed LIS-1 movement documents given to you by the keepers.

You can also choose to report moves on to your showground online if you have a LIS account or you use farm software that’s linked to LIS – check with your provider.

Send movement documents with the animals

Whether you report movements online or by paper, you must send copies of the LIS-1 movement document with the animals.

You’ll need up to 4 copies of the document – keep one for yourself and give the others to the haulier or whoever is transporting the animals. They’ll keep one and pass the others on to the receiving keeper.

Markets, collection or assembly centres

Print out a completed LIS-1 movement document when you’ve reported the movement online.

Showgrounds

You can do one of the following:

fill in the paper version by hand – this comes as a ‘quadruplicate’ (4 identical pages)
fill in the editable PDF on LIS, then print it
print the PDF and fill it in by hand