Livestock Tech Talks Season 2
These talks are part of the Red Meat and Wool Growth Program, an initiative of the Department of Primary Industries and Regions and supported by Meat & Livestock Australia, SA Sheep and Cattle Industry Funds, and AWI/SheepConnect SA.
Episode 1: Remote weigh system technology for cattle
In this episode John Cooper, Farm Manager from Struan Research Centre and Michael Wilkes from Thomas Elders Institute talk about the latest cattle weighing innovation – Optiweigh, an accurate and labour saving tool that monitors the weight and performance of cattle remotely. They demonstrate how:
- the Optiweigh system and how it works in the paddock
- it works in conjunction with electronic Identification (eID)
- the data collated can easily be used to make management decisions via the Optiweigh app.
Episode 2: Capturing pregnancy scanning data through the use of eID
This episode showcases Glen Tilley’s Hillcott property and how they’ve changed their Pregnancy Scanning business’ model through the adoption of Electronic Identification (eID). It explores:
- benefits of pregnancy scanning merino ewes
- how eID can be used during pregnancy scanning to capture data and the benefits versus doing this manually
- how eID’s can help implement management decisions as a result of pregnancy scanning.
Produced by program partner SheepConnect SA.
Episode 3: Monitoring stock water with leak detection technology
This episode showcases Shane Oster’s (Alpha Group) water telemetry technology and how Felicity Turner has adopted it on their property. It explores:
- benefits of water leak detection and what the other telemetry options are
- what the equipment looks like and how it works for them
- how the implementation of water telemetry has improved how they manage their farm.
Produced by program partner SheepConnect SA.
Episode 4: Using Electronic Identification (eID) with sheep
This episode showcases Jack and Francis England’s property at Keilera, demonstrating their use of electronic identification (eID) to weigh lambs to ensure lambs meet market and processor grid specifications and to assist with management decisions in their ewe flock.
Episode 5: Using Electronic Identification (eID) with cattle
This episode showcases James Darling’s property, Duck Island at Keith, demonstrating how they have used electronic identification (eID) in cattle to:
- provide reliable data and weights for cows and calves and
- record management treatments given to all animals.
Data is downloaded into a software package (Stock Book) to analyse data to identify the poor performing cows that are then sold.
Episode 6: Measuring wool traits using Electronic Identification (eID)
This episode showcases Georgie Keynes (Keyneton Station), discussing how they’ve used electronic identification to measure, monitor and track wool traits, particularly wool weights.
Produced by program partner SheepConnect SA.
Episode 7: Sheep Electronic Identification: What’s in it for me?
This presentation was part of the Red Meat and Wool Growth Program Focus Farm Field Day at McPiggery
In the episode Nathan Scott, Achieve Ag explores how electronic identification (eID) can be used in commercial sheep flocks and cattle herds to improve profitability and productivity. The benefits of using eID include that it is more accurate, easier and faster than manual recording which means it is more likely to happen.
It can be used to tracking animals for biosecurity and individual animal performance.
Nathan stresses that to improve you need to change, so the first thing is to find out the current productivity of your livestock enterprise and then determine what, how much and by when you want to improve. By identifying poor performing animals and removing these you can achieve generational gain and then by selecting sires with desirable traits get genetic gain.
His message is to start simple with easy to use equipment to gain confidence before advancing to more complex data and decision making.
Its not the tools (eID), it’s YOU that will make the difference.