USDA Approves First UHF Tag for Animal Identification System

For the past year, Eriginate has tested the eTattoo dangle tag on cattle and water buffalo in Brazil. The plastic tag measures 3 inches by 4.5 inches, making it too large to be a button tag. The size of the tag allows its longer read range, Junek explains, and the format as a dangle tag is what is most common and familiar to cattle owners. Brazil currently has approximately 250 million head of cattle, many of which are destined for beef markets in the European Union, where there are strict requirements regarding meat traceability. For that reason, the country is expected to launch a mandatory RFID-based cattle-tracking system. With the pilot, Eriginate tagged several thousand cattle and water buffalo about one year ago. The company has since been testing how well the tags can be read. The water buffalo were tagged to further test the tags' durability, Junek says, noting, "There's nothing harder on a tag than a water buffalo." The tags performed well, he adds, with most remaining attached to the animals' ears and working properly—being read up to 15 feet away with a handheld interrogator, and more than 25 feet with a fixed reader.

Another advantage to employing UHF tags in some remote locations, Junek says, is the lower power demand on an interrogator that is reading UHF Gen 2 tags, as opposed to the slower LF tags. Because the readers require less power, Junek says, Eriginate was able to use batteries to operate the devices in remote areas where no electrical infrastructure was available.

Eriginate board of directors member Doran Junek

The eTattoo tag is now commercially available in the United States, and is being sold by Fort Supply Technologies. Eriginate is working with an unnamed company to sell its eTattoo tag in Brazil, Junek says. The eTattoo tag costs around $3.95 apiece, he notes, though the price would drop with high-volume purchases.

Going forward, Hammerschmidt indicates, the USDA plans to review how well the UHF tags are received by their users—cattle farmers and auction houses—and then determine, in the future, which RF frequency or frequencies the cattle industry should utilize for RFID tags. "The use of RFID in the [cattle] marketplace has been, in large part, driven by the vendors. Now, we will let the marketplace determine what works," he states.

"There are cases where a limited read capability is adequate," Hammerschmidt adds. In such instances, he notes, the limited read range may be preferable, such as with handheld readers used by veterinarians aiming to avoid stray reads from other tags that could—with the case of UHF—have a long read range. However, Junek says, that problem could be addressed by configuring the interrogator's antenna to reduce the tag's read range.

In the long run, according to Hammerschmidt, the cattle industry would benefit from a single RF frequency that could be used throughout the life of a tagged animal in a variety of ways, such as with a handheld reader by a veterinarian, as well as by a fixed interrogator in a crowded auction setting.