Keeping farmed animals – guidance

Register with the British Cattle Movement Service

Before you take responsibility for cattle, bison or buffalo as a keeper, you must register with the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS).

The British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS):

maintains the Cattle Tracing System (CTS) database
issues cattle passports
processes information from keepers about cattle births, movements and deaths
answers enquiries from cattle keepers

If you are going to keep cattle, bison or buffalo, you must register with BCMS before you move any of these animals on to your holding, because there is a legal requirement that keepers must report movements on or off a holding to BCMS within 3 days of the movement.

Before you start

You must have a County Parish Holding (CPH) number and be registered correctly with the authority that issued it before you can register with BCMS.

You will also need to provide BCMS with the holding address so that they can contact you.

How to register with BCMS

Contact BCMS and tell them that you are going to keep cattle, bison or buffalo. They will register your details and send you:

a letter of confirmation that your holding is registered on CTS
a letter with a reference number to use if you enrol with CTS Online and a password in order to use approved farm software using CTS Web Services
your bar code labels
a pack for new keepers, containing other information to help you get started

You can choose whether to send and receive information to BCMS online or by phone or in paper form.

Contact

British Cattle Movement Service

Curwen Road
Derwent Howe
Workington
Cumbria
CA14 2DD

Email bcms-enquiries@bcms.rpa.gsi.gov.uk

BCMS helpline 0345 050 1234

Welsh language helpline 0345 050 3456

Normal BCMS helpline opening hours: Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5pm, closed weekends and bank holidays. All calls charged at local rate.