The CPH Number, and the Rest of the Goat Paperwork

We hold a CPH number and an APHA herd mark for our own pygmy goats in west Cornwall, so this is paperwork we have actually filled in rather than summarised. It sits alongside our guide to keeping pygmy goats, and it is the part people discover after they have agreed to buy the animals.

Everything below was read on gov.uk on 7 September 2026, and four of the core pages changed within the last fourteen months. Anything written about this before mid 2026 should be treated as suspect, including, in due course, this page. We have put the dates on so you can see which parts are freshest.

What a CPH number actually is

It identifies the land, not you. Gov.uk's wording is that a CPH means the government knows where your livestock are kept and can trace them to help prevent and control disease. Move to a different holding and the number does not travel with you.

The format is nine digits, written as two for the county, three for the parish and four for the holding. One honest note on that: we could not find the digit format stated on any gov.uk guidance page. It appears in a Livestock Information developer glossary, which is an official body but a technical document rather than guidance.

In England the Rural Payments Agency issues it. In Scotland it is the Rural Payments and Inspections Division through local offices, and in Wales you apply through RPW Online.

How to apply, and what gov.uk does not tell you

You apply online through the RPA, or by phone on 03000 200 301 if you are already registered with the Rural Payments service. You need your name, address, phone, email, business details if you have them, and the location of the livestock as easting and northing coordinates, which is the part that catches people out. After applying you get an email with a validation link and you must click it within 12 hours.

Two things gov.uk does not publish, and we are not going to guess at either: there is no fee stated, and there is no processing time stated. The guidance simply advises applying as early as possible to reduce the risk of delay. Compare that with the herd mark, where APHA does publish ten working days. If you read a specific CPH turnaround somewhere, ask where it came from.

If you are renting or borrowing grazing, which is common here, look at a temporary land association or temporary CPH rather than a second full CPH.

The herd mark is a separate thing, from a separate body

The CPH identifies the land. The flock or herd mark identifies where the animal was born or last tagged, and it comes from APHA rather than the RPA. You need the CPH first. Gov.uk says that if you plan to keep livestock, including those kept as pets, you must register, and that you should do it before the animals move onto the land.

It usually takes ten working days and can take longer when they are busy. For sheep and goats the mark is UK followed by six digits. Until you have it you cannot buy legal ear tags, which is the commonest reason a first purchase gets delayed.

Goats do not need electronic tags, and sheep do

This is the single most useful thing on this page, and it is wrong on most of the pages you will find, because they treat sheep and goats as one topic. Gov.uk split the guidance by species, and the tables are genuinely different.

For a goat kept beyond twelve months, one of the approved combinations is simply two visual ear tags, any colour except yellow, red or black. No electronic tag, no bolus. For sheep in the same situation the approved table requires a yellow EID tag as one of the pair. If you keep a few pygmies for life, that difference is the whole cost of your identification system.

The other combinations for goats pair a yellow EID tag, or an EID bolus, with a second tag, a tattoo across both ears, or a green pastern band. A full adult tag carries UK, your six digit herd mark and a five digit number unique to that goat.

Kids must be tagged within six months if reared indoors, or nine months if reared outdoors, or before they leave the holding, whichever comes first.

One trap worth naming: the old combined sheep and goat identification page on gov.uk is withdrawn, and pages that still cite it are working from guidance that no longer exists.

The holding register, and the 36 hour rule

You must keep a holding register for each holding, and it applies to animals kept as pets exactly as it applies to a commercial herd.

Electronic is fine. Gov.uk accepts the Livestock Information Service, farm software, a spreadsheet, a notebook or paper. There is an official template, but it is optional, and it is now PDF only: the spreadsheet version was removed in 2022 and the option to order paper copies from Defra went in March 2024.

Movements, and the rule people get backwards

You report movements to the Livestock Information Service, which replaced ARAMS in March 2022, within three days of an animal arriving on your holding.

The receiving keeper reports the arrival. Gov.uk is explicit that the sending keeper cannot report the on movement for you. If you buy two pygmies and assume the seller has dealt with it, nobody has.

Note that the 36 hour register entry and the three day LIS report are two different obligations with two different deadlines, and merging them is one of the commonest errors we see written down.

A movement is any time animals move on or off your holding. You do not report a trip to the vet for emergency treatment, movements between land under the same CPH, registered common land, or land under a temporary land association. A showground, market or collection centre is a reportable movement.

The six day standstill, and the show trap

Move cattle, sheep or goats onto your land from another holding and, for six days afterwards, you may not move any cattle, sheep, goats or pigs off it. Day one is the day after they arrive. Moving directly to slaughter is exempt.

In practice, buying a single pygmy goat freezes every hoofed animal on your holding for six days. Buying two a few days apart stacks the standstills.

And here is the one almost nobody writes down. Taking goats to a show does not trigger a standstill when they arrive at the show. Bringing them home does, unless they are kept in an APHA approved isolation facility for six days, which a typical smallholder does not have. That sits in an annex to the general movement licence rather than in the main guidance, and that annex was updated on 26 August 2026.

Scotland is different: the standstill there is thirteen days, not six. Any page telling you six days across the UK is wrong.

Every deadline on one page

These are published in five different places on gov.uk. We have not seen them collected anywhere, so here they are together, with who each one is owed to.

Obligation	Deadline	Owed to
Apply for the CPH	Up to 6 weeks before arrival	Rural Payments Agency
Click the validation email	Within 12 hours	Rural Payments Agency
Register for a herd mark	Before the animals move onto the land. Usually 10 working days	APHA
Tag kids reared indoors	Within 6 months of birth	Your own records
Tag kids reared outdoors	Within 9 months of birth	Your own records
Enter a tagging or movement in the holding register	Within 36 hours	Your holding register
Report an animal arriving	Within 3 days	Livestock Information Service
Standstill after animals arrive, England	6 days, starting the day after	Nobody. You just wait
Standstill, Scotland	13 days	Nobody. You just wait
Count for the annual inventory	On 1 December	Your own count
Return the annual inventory, England	By 31 December	Defra
Return the annual inventory, Scotland	By 30 January	ScotEID
Keep the holding register	3 years after the last animal leaves	Your records, for inspection

All read on gov.uk on 7 September 2026. The Scottish figures come from gov.scot.

The annual inventory

Every year you count the sheep and goats on your holding on 1 December and return the inventory by 31 December. It is done online through the Defra service, which opens at the end of November, or by post in a pre-paid envelope. If your letter has not arrived by 11 December, contact Defra farm surveys.

Gov.uk publishes no penalty for missing the deadline, so we are not going to tell you what one is. In Scotland the inventory is run by ScotEID and closes on 30 January.

What an inspection actually looks at

Sheep and goat identification visits are carried out by Rural Payments Agency field officers. They head count, check tagging on sixty random animals or on all of them if you have fewer than sixty, and check the holding register and your movement documents against what was reported.

The thresholds gov.uk names are more than 20% of sample animals without the right tags, and having no farm records or holding register at all. Consequences it lists include a whole flock or herd movement restriction notice, referral to Trading Standards and possible prosecution. It does not publish fine amounts, so neither will we.

There is no pet goat category, and the feed rules prove it

People reasonably assume that two goats in a paddock are pets and that the farm rules are for farms. British law does not work that way, and the clearest proof is what you are allowed to feed them.

There is a complete ban on feeding household kitchen waste and catering waste containing products of animal origin to farmed animals, and gov.uk is explicit that this covers farm animal species kept as pets. It extends to vegetarian kitchens, because of dairy and eggs, and gov.uk states it also includes catering waste from kitchens producing vegan food. The penalty is a fine or imprisonment or both, depending on which regulations the offence falls under. Peelings from your own kitchen are not a treat, they are an offence.

The same logic runs to the end. Because goats are livestock they cannot be buried or cremated at home, which we cover in how long goats live.

Where to read on

If you have not bought yet, what miniature goat means in Britain covers what you would actually be getting, and what goats eat covers the feeding side that the catering waste rules bite on.