Patent ID: 8285606

Claim:
A method of tracking transfers of groups of animals with animal passports, the method comprising: creating an animal passport to represent a transfer of a first group of animals from a transferor to a transferee at a location, the first group comprising at least two animals and the location comprising at least one of a city and a state; assigning a unique passport identifier to the created animal passport, thereby providing a unique identifier for the transfer, the unique passport identifier being distinct from a timestamp; recording, for the created animal passport using a processor of a computer, the unique passport identifier assigned to the passport, a count of the animals in the first group, the location, an individual animal identification for each individual one of the animals in the first group, an identification of the transferor, and an identification of the transferee; and repeating the creating, the assigning, and the recording for each of at least one subsequent transfer of any of the animals in the first group as a subsequent group, wherein: the subsequent group for at least one of the at least one subsequent transfer contains different animals than the animals in the group of a next-preceding transfer; repeating the creating for each of the at least one subsequent transfer comprises creating a new animal passport for the each subsequent transfer; repeating the assigning for each of the at least one subsequent transfer comprises assigning a new unique passport identifier to the created new animal passport; and repeating the recording for each of the at least one subsequent transfer comprises recording, in addition to the new unique passport identifier assigned to the created new animal passport, the unique passport identifier assigned, by the assigning or a prior iteration of the repeating, to the animal passport created, by the creating or the prior iteration of the repeating, to represent the next-preceding transfer of any of the animals in the subsequent group.