Hutchinson ? Ear tags get lost. Pricey DNA testing takes time. Even imbedded electronic chips can migrate or be removed.

So when it comes to identifying animals at the Kansas State Fair, experts here are relying on nature to provide an identification as individual and permanent as a fingerprint — nose prints.

Months before the market steers and market lambs come to the state fair to show, the animals are nose printed and ear tagged. Their State Fair nominations and accompanying nose prints are filed away at Kansas State University where extension youth coordinator Julie Voge keeps the files until the fair date.

A second nose print is taken on any animal missing the original ear tag at the time of fair check-in — as well as all the top winners in each division — to ensure that it is the same animal.

“They are always going to have their nose,” Voge said.

Friday, David Kehler, extension agent for Butler County, was taking nose prints during the market lamb check-in.

With the animal’s head securely tied to a sheep stand, Kehler cleaned the lamb’s nose with a towel. Quickly, he pressed an ink pad to it and then lightly tapped a pad of paper to the inked nose to get an impression.

“We are making a call on whether it is the same animal or not,” he said. “That is why it is very important the original nomination has to be a clear, readable print.”

One lamb was disqualified Friday after the prints did not match up — more likely a mix-up down at the farm than any attempt to cheat at the competition, he said later.

But the prints help make for a more level playing field for the 4-H and FAA exhibitors — proving it is the same animal that the young exhibitors raised that was shown.

“A lot of what we are doing is actually rumor control,” Kehler said.

Each ridge and indentation in the nose of cows and sheep form a pattern as unique as a human thumbprint.

Across the fairgrounds, Kingman County extension agent Andrea Burns was nose printing market steers. Instead of patting the nose gently like you do with sheep, she would roll a pad of paper across the steers much bigger nose.

Bill Disberger, superintendent of the beef show, said it was easy to read a nose print.

“It’s one of those things that sound pretty technical, but if you know what you are doing, you can pick it out pretty quickly,” he said.

Even hogs have a distinctive pattern — but nose printing pigs is not practical because it is difficult to keep their noses dry long enough.