Which number should I start off with?

[Roving Jacobs]

I spent ages this past fall deciding my tag system now that I have several breeds of sheep and my flock is growing in numbers. I sat down and decided what information I really needed my tags to tell me and went from there. I wanted my tags to tell me the sex of the lamb, the breed (white romeldales and cormos look very similar as bitty lambs), the year they were born, the birth order for the year, and who their sire is. Plus I just wanted one tag instead of a farm tag and a scrapie tag. Not too much to ask or anything

So what I did is buy scrapie approved tags from premier with my scrapie info and a scrapie # on one side and a blank space where I can write my own stuff on the other. These are regulatory approved for the mandatory program but not for the voluntary program. They can also start on any number you want so I was able to skip all the tag numbers I had already used. When I tag I write down the scrapie # and then basically forget it unless I need to look it up for something. On the other side I write the farm number based on my "code" that tells me all I want to know and use that as the sheep's every day number that I actually remember. I have different colors for each breed and they go in different ears for each sex.

It seems overly complicated but its what works for me

 

[Bo Peep Soays]

edited to make my question clearer

I am going to be tagging my lambs this year after birth with a farm tag and a scrapie tag. My question is what number to start off with?

I would like to start off with 1, to save tags and make everything easier. And because these would be the first lambs born on 'my' farm (rather than my neighbor's).

However, I have this weird/OCD thing where I want my ear tags to reflect the total # of sheep I've owned/bred. So they will be consecutive numbers that will start where the previous year ended at. However, I didn't use any farm tags last year. And last year, the two scrapie tags I used were my neighbor's premises ID and I just pulled two random tags out of the box (what we always seem to do with scrapie tags lol).

So if I were to give Ciqala (farm tag #44) a scrapie tag, I would like it to be #1. However, the lambs born this year would be the 'first' on my farm, so should I start off with one for BOTH scrapie and farm tags? I would like them to match so I don't have to memorize two different numbers lol.

However, I would also like to start off with #13 for both the scrapie and farm tag. Mainly because I had Ciqala, she's had 7 lambs, and she has 4 grandlambs. Which means the next lamb born would be my 13th I've owned (excluding Hank--but I don't count him because I bought him as an adult). So should I start at #13 this year or #1? This little detail is driving me crazy trying to decide what to do!!

At my neighbor's farm, he would just buy whatever tags were in stock at the feed store he didn't already have. So when we were doing records, we had to make sure to write down the colors of the tags because we had a "Red 87" and a "Pink 87" at the same time. He did the tags in order, but whenever tags would run out they would either continue where they left off or a new color would be started from 0. I plan on having all my farm tags green, and I will have them go as high as possible before I'm made to switch colors lol. (To go with my farm name--Twin Willow Acres.)

We use a scheme like this:
1801, 1802, etc... 18 is the year born, 01, 02, 03, etc. Is order of birth. Tags are a different color for each year. Right ear: girls and left ear: boys

 

[Bo Peep Soays]

In addition, our tags are printed w our farm number, farm name, and the Scrapie number all on the tag. I order them from Premier1.