Your brand mark is your animals' surname

A registered brand or tattoo mark, under the Animal Identification Act 6 of 2002, is what proves an animal is yours: in the kraal, at a roadblock, in a sale and in a stock theft case. Without it, ownership is your word against somebody else's.

Brand or tattoo?

Large stock, cattle and horses, are branded. Small stock, sheep and goats, are tattooed. The registered mark itself is unique to you: letters and characters issued when your application is approved, so that no two owners in the country carry the same mark.

How to register

The Registrar of Animal Identification, under the national Department of Agriculture (DALRRD), registers marks. You apply on the prescribed form with a copy of your ID, and pay the prescribed fee. Your nearest DALRRD or provincial agriculture office can help you apply, and many stock theft units assist farmers with the process because it makes their work possible.

A mark can also be registered to a company, closed corporation or trust against its registration number, which matters for farming businesses and for foreign nationals farming through a South African company.

After you buy animals

The law expects a new owner to apply their own mark to newly acquired animals within 14 days. The seller's mark tells the story of where the animal came from; yours says where it belongs now. That chain of marks is the animal's history, and it is what makes stolen stock hard to sell.