Human error eliminated

01-05-2010 | Not Specified

New Zealand Grazing Company Ltd is another big user of EID technology.

Eastern Waikato service manager Paul Knudsen said the company had grazed 340,000 dairy heifers throughout the North Island to date and had weight information from 2.8 million individual weighings.

"We are finding that about 25% of these animals are coming to us with RFID tags".

The company's use of RFID was about to increase rapidly because NZ Grazing was contracted to graze 20,000 Friesian weaner bull calves later this year.

"Traceability is a key factor, so we needed to make minor changes to our systems to manage these animals."

NZ Grazing uses Tru-Test weighing scales linked to Gallagher EID products. Heifers are weighed monthly and the liveweight information collected is sent electronically to the company's head office, then emailed out to graziers and farmers, usually within 24 hours.

Paul said the use of RFID had sped up the weighing process and eliminated human error when it came to tag reading and recording.

"With our traditional six-digit grazing tag it's quite easy to misread a three for an eight when the animal is moving around or conditions
are difficult. But when a tag is scanned, the data is there straight away and there is no doubting that information whatsoever."

With weight data collection handled by EID technology, staff had more time to visually check the health and condition of individual animals, he said.

He echoed the concerns of other EID users that this technology had to be kept simple so that all staff could use it easily. He also suggested some farmers needed to learn how to install EID tags correctly.

"Every year we seem to get some lines of heifers with infected ears. This is often due to incorrect positioning of the tags or poor hygiene when handling the tags."

NZ Grazing now had weight information for about 2.8 million animals stored in its database and once EID became compulsory, "its going to make our operation easier".

"By the end of the year we will be weighing 30,000 animals monthly and so speed and accuracy is key."

  Printable View