Goat ID Numbers

For genetic evaluations, animal identification (ID) is recorded with a 2-character breed code, a 3-character country code, and a 12-character national ID.

Example:   AIUSA000000908505

Most goats with records in the national dairy database have IDs provided by the American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA), which assigns a 9-character ID that is expanded to 12 characters by adding zeroes to the left of the ADGA ID. Historically, those IDs had included registry status as a prefix to a 7-character ID number (for example, a prefix of 18 identified an animal as part of a grading-up program). In 2005, ADGA stopped including a prefix in the ID and began submitting that information in the registry status field. The prefix was also removed from some historical records if it was not required for uniqueness. The G prefix for grade animals fills position 7 from the right; thus, for IDs over 999999, the millions place is in position 8 from the right.

In addition to ADGA IDs, national IDs can be an eartag ID assigned through the Dairy Herd Information program, an American Goat Society ID, or an American ID. For eartag IDs, AAA and ZZZ are the positions of the alphabetic characters. In ID ranges where the registry prefix is required for uniqueness, XXX represents 000, 180, 190, or 00G and YYY represents 001, 181, 191, or 01G as described above.