e. Determining the Age of the Product. There are two ways to determine the
age of the product. One uses the pack date and the other uses the pull date.
(1) Date of pack (pack date). The Julian date is used for the calculation
involved. The Julian date of pack is determined. The Julian date of pack is subtracted
from the Julian date of the day of inspection. The result is the age of the product.
(2) Determine Julian date. The Julian date is simply the day of the year. For
example, the Julian date for January 01 is 001. The Julian date for January 02 is 002 and
so on. However, during a leap year the days will change slightly. A leap year will be
divisible by 4. For example, 2000, 2004, 2006 are leap years. Use the charts on the next
two pages to determine the Julian date and the age of the product.
EXAMPLE: Make sure the dates below are correct (note some dates will
be leap years)
DATE
Julian Date
May 7, 2001
127
July 12, 2002
193
October 17, 2003
290
November 10, 2004
315
December 26, 2004
361
EXAMPLE: Today's Date Minus Date of Pack = Age of Product
3= year and 165 = the Julian date
(165 003 = 162)
3165
--
3003
=
162 days old
(14 June 2003)
(3 Jan 2003)
(3) Pull date. A DOD standard publication is kept by each veterinary food
inspection office. Information from this publication is compared with the pull date to
determine if the product meets age requirements.
MD0694
6-7