Work out which section of the breeding book an animal belongs in, and why. Covers the four eligibility tests, the grading-up ladder, and the points where the regulation hands the decision to your approved breeding programme rather than deciding it itself.
Set the book status of each ancestor. The verdict updates as you go.
For cattle, pigs, sheep and goats the route from a supplementary section into purebred status is fixed by the regulation, sex-asymmetric, and takes four generations of females. Equines are different: Chapter III 1(b) permits both sexes to be upgraded, but hands every condition to the approved breeding programme.
The trap: for bovine, porcine, ovine and caprine animals only females can be graded up. A male with any supplementary ancestry in the positions the regulation specifies has no route into the main section at all, however good he is. Registering one anyway is the kind of error that propagates down a lineage for decades — and Defra has been running a compliance sweep on exactly this class of mistake in GB equine studbooks since 2025.
Issued at the breeder's request under Art. 30(1), and mandatory under Art. 30(4) whenever an animal is traded for entry in another book. Model forms are prescribed by Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/717, whose annexes were replaced by (EU) 2020/602.
| Field | Requirement | Commonly got wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Issuing body | Name of the breed society, with website reference where available | — |
| Book & class | Name of the breeding book, and the class within the main section where applicable | Class omitted where the main section is divided |
| Identification | Identification system and individual number under animal health law | — |
| Identity verification | Method and result, where required under Art. 22 | Result left blank; mandatory for AI sires |
| Pedigree | Six named ancestors — parents and both sets of grandparents — each with breeding-book number and section | Section omitted, which is the field that proves eligibility |
| Evaluation | Performance testing results, and up-to-date genetic evaluation including the date of that evaluation | Stale results; missing evaluation date |
| Defects | Genetic defects and genetic peculiarities relevant to the breeding programme | Omitted entirely |
| Pregnant females | Date of insemination or mating, and identity of the fertilising male | May sit in a separate document, often lost |
| Signature | Name, capacity and signature of the authorised person | Space for more than one issuing body since 2020/602 |
Equines work differently again: under Art. 32 and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/1940 this information lives inside the single lifetime identification document, split into Part I (origin, issued once) and Part II (trade, completed or updated on every transfer).