Enter the animal's date of birth, where it was born, and the date it died (today by default). This tells you whether it falls under the 48-month or 24-month BSE testing threshold.
Enter a date of birth above to check.
Cattle over 48 months old at death, born in the UK or most EU member states, must be tested for BSE if they die on farm rather than at a slaughterhouse. Cattle born outside that group are tested from 24 months instead. Under the relevant threshold, no test is required.
It calculates the animal's exact age in months between the date of birth and the date of death, then compares that to the threshold set by its country of birth, 48 months for UK and most EU-born cattle, 24 months for cattle born elsewhere. If the age at death meets or passes that threshold, testing is required.
Check the animal's date of birth against its passport before calling a collector, not after. Age is the one fact that decides whether this rule applies at all, and confirming it first can save an urgent call that didn't need to be urgent.
Contact an approved collector within 24 hours of death to arrange delivery, and the carcass must reach an approved sampling site within a further 48 hours, roughly 72 hours from death to sampling in total. That is a much tighter window than the general fallen stock disposal timeline, so it's worth knowing before you make the first call, not partway through it.
For who pays for the test, what happens to the result, and how this fits alongside the standard fallen stock disposal route, see the BSE testing guide.
FarmHQ already knows an animal's date of birth from its passport record, so when a death is logged, it flags on the spot whether the BSE testing rule applies, rather than leaving the calculation to be done from memory.
See how FarmHQ worksIt works out the animal's age in months at the date of death and compares that to the relevant threshold: 48 months for cattle born in the UK or in an EU member state other than Bulgaria or Romania, and 24 months for cattle born elsewhere. If the age at death meets or exceeds that threshold, testing is required.
No BSE test is required. The carcass still has to go through the standard approved fallen stock disposal route, it just does not need TSE sampling first.
Contact an approved collector within 24 hours of the animal's death, and the carcass must reach an approved sampling site within a further 48 hours, roughly 72 hours from death to sampling in total.