Cattle farmers are being advised to use national animal identification and traceability (NAIT) compliant tags on spring-born calves.
If the NAIT scheme is approved, radio frequency identification tags would be mandatory from July 2011, and to avoid having to re-tag cattle, farmers were being advised to use compliant tags in calves born this spring.
The Animal Health Board has approved NAIT-compliant tags as secondary tags under its bovine Tb control programme.
NAIT chairman Ian Corney said while the scheme still had to be approved, farmers needed to weigh that up against the saving of time and money by tagging calves born this spring.
The cost of tags has been calculated at between $1 and $2 each.
"It is also a lot easier and safer to tag juvenile rather than fully grown animals.
"So there are workload and health and safety considerations."
Federated Farmers has resisted the implementation of the NAIT scheme, saying the costs outweigh the benefits.
However, the Government, meat processors and key customers such as McDonald's all support it.
Federated Farmers has said such advice was "jumping the gun", adding there was no guarantee NAIT would be implemented in its current guise and the price of tags could fall if it was.