Large-scale users value tag technology

Staff member Herewini Mauroa enjoys using EID to monitor cattle performance.

01-05-2010 | Not Specified

Landcorp Farming is using animal EID (electronic identification) on a large scale and is set to increase use of the technology.

Landcorp, which farms 1.5 million stock units on 105 farms totalling 400,000ha, began investigating EID technology several years ago and has about 50,000 sheep, beef and dairy animals tagged with RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags. This includes commercial stock and intensively recorded stock from the company's sheep, cattle and deer breeding programmes.

At the Beef & Lamb NZ traceability field day in western Waikato in April, Landcorp Farming's national marketing and procurement manager Phil McKenzie said the technology had quickly proved itself for the breeding operations and had been "an absolute winner for us" in dairying.

EID and the use of other tech­nologies such as CT (computerised tomography) scanning, had enabled rapid progress in genetic improvement, he said. In recent years Landcorp had evaluated a large amount of EID technology and generated enormous amounts of data on the performance of individual animals.

EID had made weighing stock easier and far more accurate "and because weighing is easier, you go out and do it more often".

The accurate information generated by EID enabled grazing management and marketing decisions to be based on individual animal performance rather than average mob size.

"A mob of cattle might average 400kg liveweight (LW), but within that mob can be animals ranging from 280kg LW to 500kg LW."

Phil McKenzie said EID helped managers to identify those individual animals performing best. This was important because the aim was to select breeding replacements from the top quartile of performers rather than the median. "The day of the average animal is over."

Information collected via EID was useful for making better breeding and culling decisions.

"For example, you might be considering culling a cow, but when you check her historical information you see that she actually weaned the top calf weight and you should be looking to keep her."

Phil said another example of individual animal performance data proving valuable was when analysing and recording the weight of animals transferred from farm to farm - a regular occurrence for Landcorp Farming.

"When we were transferring yearling cattle to finishing farms we found out that cattle from one farm were 50kg LW behind those from other farms. So we went back to that farm and made some changes, including altering the calving date and the sheep-to-cattle ratio. That farm is now producing yearlings at similar weights to the other farms. We might have made these changes eventually anyway, but the information from RFID made it easier to do."

Phil said the data provided by EID was crucial for supporting farm-management decisions. This information was especially useful for the younger, less experienced managers because it gave them more confidence to make decisions. Some had been reluctant to adopt the technology but "they soon get going once they get used to it".

They needed a reason to use it "because the first thing they will ask is ‘What does this give me that I can't get out of a notebook'"?

EID systems still relied on human input and for this reason it was important that manufacturers of EID technology kept the products as user-friendly as possible.

"The more we can automate this stuff, the better. The crucial thing [about EID] is that it gives us more time to make the best decision."

Phil said Landcorp Farming still had a lot more to learn about how to fully utilise EID.

"It's fantastic technology and we are enjoying the ride."

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