A register, and nothing more.
MuzzleCheck is free, it is open to anyone, and it exists for the good of the farming community. It does one job: it keeps a record of animals their owners have reported stolen, and it compares what you send against that record. That narrow job is deliberate, and the rest of this page explains why.
Free, and meant to stay free
Checking an animal costs nothing. There is no account to open, no membership, and nothing held back behind a payment. A farmer whose animal is stolen pays nothing to put it on the register, and a buyer at a gate pays nothing to ask about it.
That is a decision, not a launch offer. A stolen-stock register that only paying members could search would protect exactly the wrong people — the buyers who can afford a subscription, and the thieves selling to everyone who cannot.
It does cost money to run: servers, storage, and the matching engine behind the nose photographs. That is covered by donations and by the livestock platforms that contribute records. See donations below.
What we do — and what we do not do
MuzzleCheck is a repository and a matching engine. Being clear about where that stops is as important as what it covers.
What MuzzleCheck does
- Keeps a register of animals reported stolen by their registered owners.
- Compares an ear tag, a brand mark or a nose photograph against that register.
- Answers anyone who asks, in seconds, free.
- Records every check, so there is a permanent trail of who asked about what.
- Tells an owner when their flagged animal has been checked.
- Takes a record off the register the moment the owner recovers the animal or withdraws the report.
- Listens: a flag can be disputed or queried, and the outcome is kept on record.
What MuzzleCheck does not do
- We do not investigate. We do not go looking for stolen animals and we do not pursue anybody.
- We do not recover animals and we do not arrange for anyone else to.
- We do not decide who is telling the truth. We publish what an owner has reported, and we say plainly that this is what it is.
- We do not act for anyone — not the owner, not the buyer, not the seller, not the police. We are nobody's agent.
- We are not a law-enforcement service and we hold no authority of any kind.
- We do not campaign. Fighting stock theft is important work, and it is other people's work.
Why we hold that line
A register that takes sides stops being believed by the side it went against. The day MuzzleCheck starts investigating, advocating or deciding, its answers become an opinion — and an opinion is worth very little to a buyer standing at a gate, to a seller defending an honest sale, or to an investigator building a case.
By staying a repository and a matching engine, we can give the same answer to everyone, and everyone can rely on it. Our usefulness rests entirely on being impartial, so we guard it carefully — including from ourselves.
It is also why a donation buys nothing. No donor, no contributing platform and no farmer gets a different answer, a faster answer, or any influence over what the register says.
Donations are welcome
MuzzleCheck is free for the community and paid for by people who think it ought to exist. If it has helped you — or you would simply like it to be there on the day you need it — a donation keeps it running.
Donations are entirely voluntary. There is no membership, no tier, and nothing to unlock. If you would like to contribute, or your business would like to help cover the running costs, please get in touch and we will send you the details.
A donation buys goodwill and server time. It buys no influence over the register.
Contact us
Questions, corrections, a flag you believe is wrong, an offer of help, or a donation — write to us. We read everything.
-
hello@muzzlecheck.org
We answer in English, Afrikaans and isiZulu.
- An animal wrongly flagged
- Write to the same address with the tag number or brand mark and tell us what you
believe is wrong. Every dispute is recorded, the flag is marked as disputed while it is
looked at, and the outcome stays on record.
A "dispute or query this result" button is coming to every answer screen.
- Livestock platforms
- MuzzleCheck takes records from any livestock platform that meets the contributor contract. If you run one and want your farmers' stolen-stock reports to reach every buyer in the country, write to us.
Who is behind it
MuzzleCheck is an independent register. It is fed by livestock platforms that contribute reports on behalf of their farmers; the first of these is KraalBook, a livestock record app. Contributing platforms supply records and help carry the running costs — they do not control what the register says, and no platform's animals are treated differently from any other's.
The register is built to work the same way in any country. Nothing in it is tied to one country's police force, tag format or brand system — a contributing platform supplies its own, and the register simply matches on them.
An animal's owner is never shown to anyone who checks. A check answer carries the species, breed, sex, the date it was reported and the case number if there is one — never a name, a phone number or a farm.
Straight talk: a match means "reported stolen by the owner", and what happens next is between you, the seller and the police. No match means "not on this register" — nothing more, and certainly not that an animal is clean. The register is only ever as strong as the farmers who are on it.