Cheptel and numagrit numbers

There are various EU rules about animals being registered and their locations known to help prevent outbreaks of disease and to make the handling easier. Each country has it's own interpretation and implementation of these rules. You can't take an animal to the abatoir if it is not properly registered.

We thought we were stuck in a loop of being unable to get the relevant paperwork done because we needed to get two numbers and it seemed that to get a cheptel number you needed a numagrit and to get a numagrit you needed a cheptel number aaaaargh. Obviously they are administered by separate departments.
We went on a day trip to Tarbes to try to sort this out. Frankly we didn't expect to get it done in a day but felt that it would be simpler to go and speak in person and find out what we needed to do. In the event it was much simpler than expected and something we expected would take months was all done in a day. We have found that in quite a few cases people are very helpful face to face but it is hard to get a proper response on the phone or via email (I think this is the system rather than our language ability although that also makes it easier for us to do things in person).

So now we are just waiting for the ear tags for the sheep to arrive and we should be compliant with all the rules.
We need to visit the abatoir to make sure we have done everything they need to be able to process the pigs but we believe we shoudl now be able to take the pigs there when we are ready.

We have healthcare!

We are entitled for health care in France for a limited time because of France and the UK being in the EU. In France you have to pay the equivelent of NI (that is simplifying it) to be eligable for health care. I started off trying to explain the ins and outs of it here, but it is all very complicated. The upshot is that we are covered until the end of 2013 and will then have to sort something else out, either doing some work which pays the relevant tax or by private health care. After 5 years you are allowed to make the tax contributions even if you are not doing work which pays the relevant tax.
Strangly we pay tax on our UK rental incomve (11%) which is called a social charge and covers paying for the health service but does not actually entitle us to health care in France.
As I say it is all nearly incomprehensible, even I think by the people trying to admisiter the system and the taxes.

Anyway for now we are registered in to the system and have got social numbers which means the UK will pay for any health care (visits to doctor, perscriptions, hospital stays) we need until the end of 2013. Actually this is not quite true - they only pay what a French person would be covered for which is around 70% of the cost, so we also need some insurance which covers us if we have a long hospital stay where the costs rapidly mount up. Apparently this is not too expensive though.