A:   Record-keeping has become a more intergral part of beef cattle production, especially after the BSE was found in the United States and since the banning of feeding of all ruminant derived proteins beginning in 1998. Most Beef Quality Assurance Program (BQA) have guidelines on recordkeeping of feedstuffs. Medicated feeds can only be fed according to the lable and there are no "extra" lable feeding. In the Nebraska BQA program, supplements that have additive(s), information must be kept in in such a manner that things like name of the supplement, when the supplement was fed, to what group of livestock, how much was fed, and when feeding ended can be documented. We recommend that the this feed be samples and a feed tag be put in a zip-lock plastic bag and stored in a place where mice and others will not destroy the sample. In Nebraska, this information needs to be kept for 3 years. I think national BQA guidelines indicate that the records need to be kept for at least 1 year.

If you are marketing into a special market, there may be a requirement to keep feed records.