Where to order tags

You can order NAIT tags through:

  • your local farm supply store
  • most vets
  • the manufacturer Leader Products' online store
  • accredited organisations such as the Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) or CRV Ambreed.

NAIT tags cost about $5.00 each. This includes a tag levy of $0.97 (plus GST), which goes towards running the NAIT scheme.

Tags you can buy

Birth tags and replacement tags are different for cattle, deer and dairy.

White tags are for cattle — both the front and back are white. For deer, the front part is orange and the back can be any colour except white.

If your animals are beef or deer, tags have your NAIT location number printed on them. If you have dairy animals they have your dairy participant code printed on them but are still issued to your NAIT location.

When you buy your tags, the manufacturer makes the tag numbers available in your NAIT account. To activate the tag, you need to link the physical tag to the number in your account when you register the animal. Registering animals after tagging ensures they can be traced to their farm of birth.

RFID tags come in 2 types that use different frequencies when you read them with an RFID scanner: half duplex (HDX) and full duplex (FDX).

Tags for newborn animals

Tags for newborn animals are known as birth tags. They can come with a NAIT RFID tag and a matching visual ID panel tag. The visual ID makes it much easier to identify your animals, especially if you don't have a scanner.

The visual tags are printed with:

  • your NAIT location number or dairy participant code — you can choose which is best for you
  • the year
  • the animal's sequence number — this is a 1 to 4 digit number unique to this tag.

A visual birth tag showing the information on the tag. It ends with the 1 to 4 digit sequence number

Replacement tags

Replacement tags should only be used for animals when their NAIT RFID tag is lost or damaged. They are printed with:

  • a NAIT location number or dairy participant code
  • the tag's RFID number.

A replacement visual tag showing the layout of information on the tag

Tags are specific to your location

When you buy NAIT tags, they're issued to your NAIT location number and are recorded by the tag manufacturer in your NAIT account. This makes it easier to register your animals against the correct tag.

Tag manufacturers

New Zealand has 3 manufacturers of NAIT-approved tags:

  • Allflex
  • Leader
  • Datamars, which also manufactures ZeeTags.

When you buy tags you may also need to get a tag applicator to fit the tags — using the wrong applicator can damage them. The manufacturers can tell you which applicators work with the tags you're buying.