A NEW technology has been designed in order to prevent the theft of sheep from farms across the UK, and one Scottish farmer is already making use of it.

Named 'TecTRACER', the system works by marking livestock with thousands of forensic coded microdots, which are mixed into sheep keel before application.

These then become entangled in fleeces and coats and will trace the animal back to its home farm, should they be stolen, as each code is unique to a particular farm.

Virtually impossible to be identified, or removed, the codes are easy to recover and read by the police.

The forensic codes are held in a secure database, which will proactively broadcast any theft of livestock to others, such as auction marts, abattoirs and the police, via email, and on-farm signage is given in addition to the marker in order to warn off thieves, meaning the system, fondly labelled Operation Bo Peep! by the company, creates a very strong deterrent against theft.

Based near Comrie, the 63,000 acre Drummond Farm Estate's Dalchruin Farm has embraced the technology, in hopes that it will deter thefts on the hills where the estate's sheep are kept, and has also clearly placed the deterrent signs around the farm. So far, eight sheep flocks in Scotland have the technology, and it is hoped that more farms will take it on.

Drummond Estate factor, Michael Aldridge, was pleased to welcome the new technology, and said: "We hope that TecTRACER can do two things; one, we hope that it will put people off from stealing our sheep; and two, we hope it will help Police Scotland to apprehend whoever is responsible for sheep rustling, if some are stolen. Overall, we hope it will stop the problem in its tracks."

Although it is certainly a deterrent, the forensic keel won't stop all instances of sheep theft, and one of the men behind the technology, John Barr, who is an ex-policeman, hopes to continue to develop it to make it as reliable as possible.

"It isn't infallible, but it wasn't there up until now, and that is the big difference," said Mr Barr. "One farmer, in England, had a 10% rate of sheep theft until he got TecTRACER, so it is definitely putting people off from stealing them and we also had an incident where some sheep were stolen, and after a bit of a social media campaign, which informed everyone that the sheep were kitted out with TecTRACER, they suddenly reappeared, so thieves know that the sheep they have stolen are traceable, so it's certainly a deterrent."

In terms of pricing, an application averages around 30p per sheep, with the deterrent signage included when a farm signs up.

Membership of Operation Bo Peep! allows signage and merchandise to be used in support of the forensic codes that are applied to animals while also providing initial perimeter signage and police and stakeholder engagement, once the scheme is joined. It also allows the company to operate the database while covering the costs involved in maintaining the proactive e.alert system.