03/17/06 Introducing 4-H kids to animal i-d

The University of Idaho staff and volunteers will be attaching an electronic computer chip tag to beef animals brought in this summer by 4-H'ers. U of I's Jason Ahola says the kids will be learning about animal identification through the electronic tags which are coded with a 15 digit number that's unique to that animal. AHOLA  "Not only educate people about those tags but also let us figure out how we could use this electronic i-d tag and see if it would make data collection easier." Slated for rollout in 2009, the NAIS will require documentation of animal movement to and from the premises on which they`re being raised. Even though its three years away Ahola says they wanted the 4-H students to get correct information about animal id and the computer chip. AHOLA  "Some people think that they are implants and some people think that you can read them from hundreds of yards or even miles away. Those just aren't true. All that it really is is this little button size tag that has 300 feet of copper wire wrapped around it with a little chip inside the tag about the size of a grain of rice." Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott