Fresh Meat (Beef Controls) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996

Part I Conditions of eligibility

1.  The conditions of eligibility for a herd (in this Part referred to as “the herd”) to be registered under and for the purposes of the Beef Assurance Scheme are set out in paragraphs 2 to 9.

2.  The herd shall be a beef herd.

3.  Any other beef herd kept on the same holding shall be managed as a separate herd, so that none of the following are common to the herds: calving facilities, housing or grazing, or bulls, if used.

4.  A bovine animal shall not have been kept, reared or used for milk production on the same holding as the herd within the seven years prior to the application for registration of the herd.

5.  Any bovine animals born or reared in a dairy herd shall be removed from the herd before it is registered.

6.  There shall have been no confirmed cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy—

(a) in the herd;

(b) in any bovine animal originating from the herd;

(c) in any other herd to which bovine animals in the herd have ever belonged.

7.—(1) The herd shall have been in existence for four years.

(2) The applicant shall produce all records necessary to satisfy the Department on this point.

8.  Over the seven year period prior to the date of the application for registration of the herd, to the best of the applicant’s knowledge, no bovine animal in the herd shall have been fed any feed containing meat and bone meal. In order to satisfy himself on this point the applicant shall make all necessary enquiries of suppliers of feed to the holding.

9.  Over the four year period prior to the date of application for registration of the herd, no bovine animal in the herd shall have been fed any compound feed other than—

(a) home mixed feed using no meat and bone meal; or

(b) proprietary feed from a mill which only produced feed for ruminants.