Scrapie Monitoring Scheme

The Scrapie Monitoring Scheme helps farmers to trade in sheep and goats intended for breeding by providing information on the scrapie status of their farms. Scrapie is a fatal infectious disease of sheep and goats.

Scrapie is a notifiable disease which means you are legally obliged to notify the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine if you suspect a sheep or goat may be infected with scrapie.

Participation in the scheme is voluntary but is generally required for anyone wishing to maintain a flock or herd from which they can sell or move sheep to other countries within the European Union or to the UK, including Northern Ireland.

Membership of the scheme ensures that the animals to be exported fully meet the export health requirements for scrapie. It allows flocks registered in the scheme to have either a negligible or controlled risk status for scrapie.

Negligible risk

To become a negligible risk member the owner must have been a member of the scheme for each of the past seven years, and the flock or herd must be free of classical scrapie for those seven years.

Any animal bought in must be sourced from a holding with negligible risk status, or be of ARR/ARR genotype.

Controlled risk

To become a controlled risk member, the flock or herd owner must have been a member of the scheme for each of the past three years, and the flock or herd must be scrapie free for these 3 years.

Animals bought into the flock must be of ARR/ARR genotype, or be sourced from a flock or herd with the same or higher scrapie monitoring scheme status as the purchasing flock, for example year 3, 4, 5 or 6, or negligible risk status.

Farmers must comply with the Conditions of the scheme including the following:

• all animals in the flock are clinically inspected annually by a private veterinary practitioner for signs of scrapie
• flock records are in order with documentary proof of all movement into and out of the farm
• all animals are accounted for and properly tagged
• premises are suitable for purpose and appropriate bio-security measures are in place
• all fallen animals are submitted to a local knackery or dead animal collection centre for TSE sampling and subsequent TSE testing

For further information about the scheme contact: