Marking, Identification and the Four-Document Movement Drill

#Six weaners, forty kilometres, one handshake

Your neighbour buys six weaners. He is 40 km away, he brings his own bakkie on Saturday morning, and the two of you have known each other for a decade. You load, shake hands, and he drives off.

Between you, that load may carry four separate offences.

That scene is not unusual — it is how most South African stock moves. It is also why stock theft prosecutions collapse. SAPS puts the problem plainly: many court cases are lost because of disputes about the proper identification of animals. And the scale is not small. SAPS recorded 10 449 cattle, 16 816 sheep and 11 403 goats stolen between January and March 2026 — more than 43 000 head in one quarter. Over 2018–2024 the Eastern Cape alone lost 30 816 cattle worth R399 million across 29 857 police cases in eight districts.

The previous lesson ended on Meat Safety Act s11, which requires an animal presented for slaughter to arrive with "information as to ownership". This lesson is where that information comes from.

#The mark: what the regulations actually prescribe

The Animal Identification Act 6 of 2002 applies to the animals the Minister declares — in practice cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. You register a mark with the Registrar of Animal Identification under s5 and receive a certificate. Under s7(1) you must then mark your animals in the prescribed manner, re-mark within 14 days if directed to where a mark has become invisible or indistinct, and tell the Registrar when your address changes.

The detail — size, characters, age and position — sits in the regulations, GN R.1683 of 21 November 2003, not in the Act itself. That is where you go to read it.

The legal position

Mark specification, from GN R.1683.

	Size	Composition	Age	Position
Cattle / equine	tattoo ≤20 × 20 mm; brand ≥40 mm and ≤100 mm both ways	1–3 characters; 6 mm apart on a tattoo, 20 mm apart on a brand, in a row, column or equilateral triangle	cattle: tattoo from 1 month, marked by 6 months; brand from 6 months, branded by two-tooth. Equine: tattoo from 6 months, brand by 12 months	cattle tattoo in an ear; brand on any clearly visible part except the neck. Equine tattoo on upper jaw, lower lip or ear
Sheep / goats	tattoo ≤20 × 20 mm	1–3 characters, 6 mm apart	reg 11(b): small stock "must be tattooed at the age of one month"	left or right ear
Pigs	tattoo ≤20 × 20 mm	1–3 characters, 6 mm apart	reg 11(c): pigs "can be tattooed at the age of one month" — permissive, unlike small stock	left or right ear
Ostriches	tattoo ≤20 × 20 mm; brand ≤25 × 25 mm	1–2 characters, 6 mm apart	tattoo from 1 month; brand from 6 months	under a wing below 6 months; outer thigh above 6 months

Only Annexure 1 characters may be used — letters or symbols, never numerals (reg 2). Marking operators who mark for gain must be trained in hot-iron and freeze branding, tattooing, restraint, identification law and welfare law, and must keep a register (reg 7).

Three things farmers get wrong here, all of them expensive.

The brand position on cattle excludes the neck. The neck already carries the reactor marks under the Animal Diseases Regulations — a "T" on the left for tuberculosis and a "C" on the right for brucellosis. A brand there risks muddying a disease-status mark, which is the last mark you want ambiguous.

Numerals are not characters. A mark reading "47" is not a registered identification mark, however neatly it is applied.

Ear tags are not legal identification. They are excellent management tools and you will use them for individual animal records. But the compulsory mark under Act 6 of 2002 is a brand or a tattoo, and a tag comes off with a pocket knife in four seconds. (The research could not confirm the Act's own s1 definition of "marking", reported to exclude horn and hoof marks, paint, tags, notches and holes — check with the Registrar if you are relying on it.)

#The 14-day rule is about selling, not branding

This is the most commonly misquoted provision in South African livestock law. You will be told you must brand a purchased animal within 14 days. That is not what s7(2) says.

The legal position

Animal Identification Act 6 of 2002, s7(2)–(3).

Within 14 days of becoming the owner of a marked animal, you may dispose of it still bearing the previous owner's mark, provided you furnish a document of identification to the person acquiring it.
After 14 days, you may not dispose of it unless it bears your own registered mark and you furnish a document of identification.
The person acquiring the animal must keep that document for one year.

s15 forbids marking with an unregistered mark, with someone else's mark without authority, otherwise than as prescribed, or with a mark registered to a person who is not the owner — with a carve-out for marks applied under breed-society or registering-authority rules, or by a SA Stud Book breeder.

s16 offences: possessing an animal marked otherwise than as allowed; altering, mutilating or cancelling a mark; selling such an animal; selling an animal of which an ear has been cut off; and marking for gain without being a registered marking operator. Penalty: a fine or imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both.

The practical translation is stronger than the version you were told: if you buy an animal and keep it longer than 14 days, you may not lawfully sell, barter or give it away until it carries your own registered mark — and every transfer needs a document of identification. The obligation attaches to disposal, so a trader flipping stock inside a fortnight moves unbranded animals lawfully, while the farmer who keeps a cow for two years and then sells her without branding her cannot.

And note the ear-cutting offence: removing an inconvenient tattoo by cutting the ear off is specifically listed, which tells you what the drafters expected people to try.

#The four-document drill

Now put the Acts together. Four instruments, four documents, one load.

Do this on the farm

Before any animal leaves the property, check off all four:

The registered mark — correct for the species, at the right age, in the right position, and yours if you have owned the animal more than 14 days. Animal Identification Act 6 of 2002, s7.
A document of identification — furnished at the time of delivery, by whoever disposes of the stock, including auctioneers, agents and market masters. Stock Theft Act 57 of 1959, s6, and Act 6 of 2002 s7(2). The person receiving the animals keeps it for one year.
A removal certificate — required whenever the person driving, conveying or transporting the stock on a public road is not the owner. Issued by the owner or the owner's authorised agent. Stock Theft Act 57 of 1959, s8.
A state veterinary movement permit — wherever a disease regime touches the animals or the route: FMD controlled areas and Disease Management Areas, quarantine stations, designated abattoirs, listed ports and airports, Annexure 2 areas. Animal Diseases Regulations, reg 20.

Then run the fifth check, which is not a document: reg 20(1)(a)(iii) forbids moving any animal that is not visibly free from external parasites off the land where it is kept, except to the place where it is normally dipped. A tick-covered weaner is a movement offence with a clean file.

Keep copies of everything for at least a year.

Go back to the six weaners. The weaners need your brand if you have had them longer than 14 days. You must hand over a document of identification at delivery, and he must file it for a year. Because he is transporting stock he does not yet own off your land, s8 bites, and the safest practice is that whoever drives carries written authority from the owner. And in Gauteng in 2026 the fourth leg is not theoretical.

Contested — here is both sides

Does compulsory marking actually reduce stock theft?

The case for. SAPS leans hard on branding as the evidentiary backbone of prosecution — its own material says many court cases are lost because of disputes about the proper identification of animals. A brand is permanent, visible from a distance, survives skinning in a way a tag does not, and is what turns a recovered animal into recoverable property. The intervention is cheap and the enforcement burden is on the thief, not the farmer.

The case against. The penalty is a fine or six months, which is no deterrent against organised theft. Compliance in the communal sector is low, so the deterrent applies unevenly to precisely the herds most often raided. And the deepest limitation is structural: the mark identifies an owner, not an animal. It cannot support individual-animal traceability — which is what FMD recovery, EU market access and insurance actually need.

Both are right, and the conclusion is the same either way: brand because it protects your recovery and your prosecution, and never present the mark to a buyer or an auditor as a traceability system. It is not one.

#What to do on Monday

If you have stock and no registered mark, that is the first phone call — to the Registrar of Animal Identification, before the next animal arrives, not before the next one leaves. Print document-of-identification and removal-certificate books and keep them in the crush, not in the house. Brand cattle by two-tooth and tattoo small stock at one month as a routine handling job rather than a scramble before a sale.

And put the four-document drill on a laminated card on the loading ramp. The morning you sell six weaners to a neighbour you have known for a decade is exactly the morning nobody remembers to check.

#Check yourself

4 questions — answers explained as you go

1You bought ten heifers eighteen months ago and never branded them. A buyer wants them next week. What does Act 6 of 2002 require?
Why: s7(2) is a rule about disposal, not a branding deadline. Inside 14 days of acquiring an animal you may pass it on still bearing the previous mark, with a document of identification. After 14 days you may not dispose of it at all unless it carries your own mark and is accompanied by that document — which the buyer must then keep for a year.
2Your transporter's bakkie is stopped on the R59 with eight of your oxen on board. Which document does the Stock Theft Act 57 of 1959 specifically require him to have?
Why: s8 forbids driving, conveying or transporting stock you do not own on a public road without a removal certificate from the owner or the owner's authorised agent. The document of identification is a s6 duty on delivery, and the movement permit comes from the Animal Diseases Regulations, not the Stock Theft Act — three different instruments answering three different questions.
3Which of these marks complies with GN R.1683 for a beef cow?
Why: The regulations allow 1–3 characters from Annexure 1 — letters or symbols, not numerals — with a cattle brand between 40 and 100 mm and on any clearly visible part except the neck. The neck is reserved for the T and C reactor marks. Ear tags are management tools, not the compulsory mark.
4Your weaners are marked, documented and permitted, but they are visibly carrying ticks. May the load leave?
Why: This is the leg with no paperwork attached, which is why it catches people who have done everything else right. The Animal Diseases Regulations bar the movement itself off the land where the animal is kept, with the dip as the only exception — so the fix is a handling job, not a phone call.