Animal health inspections

Trading Standards’ Animal Health Inspectors enforce farm animal health legislation. Their duties include:

inspecting farms, markets and vehicles
enforcing animal feed legislation and issuing ‘On farm mixers’ licences.

Preventing mistreatment of animals

Trading Standards enforce animal health, welfare and disease control legislation for livestock* on farms. This includes:

Routine inspections of farms, markets and vehicles.
Providing advice and guidance to farms.
Investigating complaints.
Providing assistance in managing outbreaks of notifiable diseases such as Avian Influenza. For the latest situation
Enforcement action where serious breaches are identified.**

* ‘Livestock’ refers to sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, deer, horses and poultry.

** Any enforcement action will be taken in line with our published enforcement policy.

Making an animal welfare referral

If you have serious concerns about the welfare of farm animals in your area, please contact our duty team. All correspondence will be dealt with in complete confidence.

If you are concerned about the welfare other animals, including pets, please contact the RSPCA.

Keeping and moving animals

Keeping livestock

‘Livestock’ refers to sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, deer, horses and poultry.

All keepers of livestock, whether they have a whole herd or just one animal (for poultry, 50 or more birds), must be registered with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

You must also conform to legislation on animal identification and tracing. For full details on tagging and registering livestock see the GOV.UK website:

For more information about the law regarding the keeping of animals, including journey times and the types of transportation required, see Animals and agriculture.

Horse passports

All horses, ponies and donkeys must have animal passports. For information about the regulations and how to apply, see getting and using a horse passport.

Pet passports

New rules apply from 1st January 2021 when travelling with your pet between Great Britain (GB) and abroad. To allow pets to enter GB without having to stay in quarantine, strict criteria must be met. See bringing your pet to Great Britain and taking your pet abroad.

Disposal of livestock remains

To avoid contamination, livestock remains must be disposed of by approved means. For details, see disposal of animal by-products and fallen stock.

Animal feed

Assimilated Regulation (EC) No 183/2005 laying down requirements for feed hygiene is aimed at ensuring that controls throughout the feed chain are strengthened. Main points include:

The requirement for all feed businesses to be registered and/or approved
controls and provisions in relation to feed businesses' operational standards
provisions to help ensure that feed is produced, transported and stored in hygienic conditions, and records are kept allowing full traceability of feed

Who is covered?

With few exceptions, the legislation applies to all feed businesses, which are defined in assimilated Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety as "any undertaking, whether for profit or not and whether public or private, carrying out any operation of production, manufacture, processing, storage, transport or distribution of feed including any producer producing, processing or storing feed for feeding to animals on his own holding".

Examples of feed businesses include:

feed manufacturers
feed importers
sellers of feed
feed transporters
storers of feed
food companies selling co-products or surplus food for use in feed
pet food manufacturers
livestock farms, fish farms or arable farms growing and using or selling crops for feed use

Before applying for registration or approval, feed businesses musty ensure they can meet the relevant feed hygiene requirements. Guidance on this can be found on the Business Companion Website or by following this link Feed hygiene for farmers and growers | Business Companion

In addition to the guidance above, the legislation can be found on Legislation.gov.uk here: Regulation (EC) No 183/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 January 2005 laying down requirements for feed hygiene (Text with EEA relevance)

If you intend to use any products of animal origin, it is likely that approval may be needed from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). Guidance on using products of animal origin can be found at the following links.

· Supplying and using animal by-products as farm animal feed - GOV.UK

· Manufacturing your own pet foods | Business Companion

· Pet food | Food Standards Agency

Applying for registration or approval

Before applying it may be beneficial to discuss your requirements with a feed officer. Please email trading.standards@eastsussex.gov.uk providing your name and contact details and a brief description of your business/farm type and an officer will call you in due course.

To register your business, please complete the application form which can be found here - Application for registration or approval under the EU Feed Hygiene Regulation (183/2005) | East Sussex County Council

Feed businesses will be allocated a code which is based on the risk associated with the activity or product. A list activities and products along with the relevant codes can be found at the link below to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) website:

· Starting an animal feed business | Food Standards Agency

Further Information

Business Companion – Animals and Agriculture

Licences for performing animals

If you intend to exhibit or train animals for public performance – for example, in school shows, television, theatre or in a film production – you must apply for a licence from your local District or Borough Council.

Reporting notifiable animal diseases

Many animal diseases are highly contagious and must be reported as soon as an outbreak is suspected. These are known as notifiable diseases.

List of diseases

Notifiable diseases include:

Bluetongue
Bird flu (Avian influenza)
Anthrax
Rabies

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) website has a full list of notifiable diseases.

The latest situation for both Avian Influenza and Bluetongue can be found at the following links.

· Bird flu (avian influenza): latest situation in England - GOV.UK

· Bluetongue: latest situation - GOV.UK

How to report diseases

If you suspect signs of any of these notifiable diseases, or have a case confirmed, you must report this immediately using any of the following:

In the event of a notifiable disease outbreak Trading Standards work closely with the Emergency Planning Teams and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). For more information on emergency planning in East Sussex see Emergency planning | East Sussex County Council.

Monitoring animal movements and feed

To prevent the spread of disease, all livestock movements and animal feed must be monitored.