Keeping sheep and goats: the UK smallholder legal guide

Pre-requisite registrations

Before a single sheep or goat sets foot on your land, you'll need:

1. A CPH number, free, identifying the parcel of land. In England it comes from the Rural Payments Agency, in Scotland from the Rural Payments and Inspections Division, in Wales from the Welsh Government, and in Northern Ireland from DAERA.
2. A flock mark from APHA, which allocates them for England, Scotland and Wales alike (in Northern Ireland it is DAERA). A 6-character code (something like UK 12/345/6789) stamped on every ear tag and used in every record.
3. APHA registration as a sheep or goat keeper. A phone call to your regional office, usually sorted at the same time as the flock mark.

All three are free, all three are required, and the person selling you your first sheep shouldn't be delivering animals until they've seen your flock mark.

Identification: two identifiers, and only sheep need the electronics

This is the bit that costs people money they didn't need to spend. Sheep and goats are not treated the same, whatever the tag catalogue implies.

Sheep kept past 12 months (or any lamb you know isn't going for slaughter) need two identifiers, one of which must be electronic:

• A yellow EID ear tag, plus a visual tag in any colour except yellow, red or black
• Or a yellow EID tag plus a tattoo, or a green pastern band
• Or an EID bolus (swallowed, sits in the rumen) plus a black ear tag marked 'B'

A second EID tag is optional, not required. One is the legal minimum.

Goats need two identifiers too. But none of them has to be electronic. Two plain visual ear tags are an approved combination, as is a tag plus a tattoo, or a tag plus a pastern band. If someone tells you your two pet goats need EID, they're wrong, and it's a needless bill. (EID does become necessary if you're exporting.)

Tag kids and lambs on the holding where they were born: within 6 months if reared indoors, 9 months if reared outdoors, or before they move off the holding. Whichever comes first.

Lambs and kids going straight to slaughter before 12 months old can travel on a single slaughter tag. Keep one past 12 months and it needs the full adult pair.

Lost a tag? Replace it within 28 days of noticing. You can either use a replica carrying the animal's original number, or a tag with a new official number. If the animal wasn't born on your holding the replacement must be red, and you must cross-reference old and new numbers in your holding register. Update the register within 36 hours of tagging.

The standstill: 6 days in England and Wales, 13 in Scotland

Bring any sheep, goat, cattle or deer onto your holding and a standstill kicks in. In England and Wales it runs for 6 days. In Scotland it runs for 13. For that whole period, no sheep, goats, cattle or deer can leave. Not just the species you brought in. Animals going direct to slaughter are exempt.

The examples below use England's 6 days. If your stock is in Scotland, read 13 everywhere you see 6, because it more than doubles how far ahead you have to plan.

What that means in practice:

• Bought a ram during tupping season? No ewe lambs leave for 6 days.
• Bringing weaners back from grazing? Same rule applies.
• A neighbour drops a sheep round "to keep yours company"? Still 6 days.

This one catches new keepers out constantly. Plan your inbound movements around anything you've already got planned outbound. Combine them, don't stack them one after another.

Movement reporting (AML)

Every sheep or goat movement, on or off your holding, has to go on record electronically within 3 days. It's free, it's online, and it runs off your CPH and flock mark.

Which service you report to depends on your nation. In England it is the Livestock Information Service, which replaced the older ARAMS. In Scotland it is ScotEID, in Wales EIDCymru, and in Northern Ireland NIFAIS, DAERA's system, which replaced APHIS for sheep in October 2025.

1. 1

   Receive animals

   The buyer creates the AML report within 3 days. EID tag numbers get recorded individually. Most systems read them straight off a stick reader.

2. 2

   Standstill begins

   The clock starts on the holding for any outbound sheep, goats, cattle or deer: 6 days in England and Wales, 13 in Scotland.

3. 3

   Update the holding register

   Add the new animals. EID numbers, source flock mark, date of arrival.

4. 4

   Send animals

   Generate the movement document, hand the buyer the AML reference, and keep your own copy for 3 years.

Scrapie monitoring

Scrapie is a notifiable transmissible spongiform encephalopathy in sheep and goats, and any suspected case has to be reported to APHA. There's a national annual fallen-stock surveillance programme too. Any sheep that dies on your holding may, by sampling lottery, get tested. You pay nothing; the collector arranges it.

Genotyping for scrapie resistance (the National Scrapie Plan) is voluntary if you're keeping a hobby flock, though commercial flocks selling breeding stock do benefit from having ARR genotype data to hand.

Sheep vs goats. Where the law actually differs

The registration, standstill and movement rules are identical. Identification isn't. Worth knowing:

• Goats don't need EID for domestic keeping. Two visual tags will do. Sheep need one electronic identifier. This is the single most commonly misstated rule in smallholding.
• Goats moved off-holding for milking (rare in hobby keeping) bring in extra dairy hygiene rules.
• Untagged pet goats are a common informal habit and still illegal. They need their pair of identifiers like everything else. The tags just don't have to beep.
• Goat browsing has a habit of straying into next door's hedges, and legally, that's on you as the keeper.

Welfare baselines

The DEFRA Code of Recommendations for sheep and goats sets the practical standards under the Animal Welfare Act 2006:

• Two animals minimum. They're flock animals
• Shelter and shade in the pasture
• Clean water, always available
• Foot care. Check feet regularly and trim only when needed, not on a fixed schedule (routine calendar trimming can worsen lameness)
• A vaccination programme for clostridial diseases (Heptavac-P or equivalent)
• Worming and fluke control based on faecal egg counts, not the calendar

Land: a realistic stocking rate

A common smallholder rule of thumb is 5 sheep per hectare (about two to the acre) on UK permanent pasture, year-round, without supplementary feed. You can push higher on better grass with rotation, but that's the safe planning figure for a hobby flock.

Goats browse rather than graze, and need access to hedgerows or scrub, so 5 to 10 goats per hectare on mixed grazing is workable.

The legal stack for two pet sheep is identical to the stack for 200 commercial ewes. Knowing that before you buy saves some expensive surprises.