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For more information, please contact the team at Mole Valley Plus on 01769 576201 or email molevalleyplus@molevalleyfarmers.com. |
Electronic Weighing
If you can't measure it you can't manage it!
That's the view expressed by beef and sheep expert, Dan Weston, who believes that accurate, regular weighing is essential to modern day livestock production.
Know your costs
To run a business efficiently you need to know your cost of production. Accurate weighing is an essential tool for calculating the cost liveweight gain and these elements are inextricably linked.
For example, switching feeds may prove to be a false economy in the long term, because it may affect performance and lead to extended finishing periods and poor grading.
Without a precise knowledge of daily liveweight gains, it will not be possible to gauge whether your ration formulations are helping or hindering your objective.
Your feed rep may tell you that a particular vitamin and mineral blend, will improve livestock performance. You can be certain that the investment is worthwhile if you are measuring growth rates.
Failing to meet the weight specification demanded by your customer may result in penalties which can add up to hundreds, or even thousands of pounds over the year.
Weighing finished cattle or sheep before sending a load to the abattoir is vital, as it enables you to monitor killing out percentages when you receive details back from the buyer. Every abattoir is different and you might find that the type of animals you produce would achieve higher values elsewhere.
Whatever animals you are fattening, they will have a specific target weight. If you weigh regularly, you will be able to predict when this is likely to be achieved and it also enables you to pinpoint the correct time for ordering your next batch of stores.
Many veterinary medicines rely on dosages relating to animal weights. If you over-estimate individual weights and give too much of the product, you will waste money and risk livestock health. Conversely, you will also waste money and not see the full benefit of a product if you under-estimated the correct weight and thus the dosage.
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Weight watchers farm more profitably
There are very few who can consistently, accurately tell the weight of their livestock and even fewer who can carry those estimated weights forward from one month to the next. Yet knowing the precise weights of beef cattle, dairy replacements and finishing lambs at varying stages through their lives is critical to improving farm profitability.
Once a weighing system is purchased, it will be used more and more frequently as the management advantages and benefits become more apparent. Mole Valley Farmers are able to offer a choice of weighing systems to suit your existing setup, from the traditional weighing scales where your crush sits on a low platform (available from Mole Valley Farmers branches), to a choice of three different electronic scales from Mole Valley Plus. These all offer varying degrees of sophistication, from manual to electronic recording and presentation of the results. Electronic weigh systems are Tru-Test, Gallagher and Iconix, all with specific advantages to match your set-up.
Electronic load bars are generally placed under an existing cattle crush, or they can be placed under a platform fitted with the cattle crush, or into a race system. Load bars being small and easily transportable have alternative uses, and one member uses his in the feed store (when not weighing cattle) to accurately weigh small quantities of feed and feed additives prior to adding them to the Keenan Feeder, making full use of the investment.
For further information on our full range of weighing options, please contact Mole Valley Plus on 01769 576201. Cattle handling systems are available from your local Mole Valley Farmers branch.
Benefits of weighing
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Selecting stock for marketing, both beef and sheep are the most obvious.
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Weighing beef cattle on to the lorry before despatch will provide good management information once abattoir returns are received.
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Weighing all growing cattle regularly to get a precise knowledge of daily liveweight gains enables judgement on the quality of pasture or of the ration being fed.
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It indicates whether beef cattle are performing to the expected or necessary live weight gain to meet marketing criteria, or if bulling heifers are on target to be served to calve at the optimum 23-25 month of age.
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In all cases it enables diet changes to be made, or the need to supplement grazing when performance drops.
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Scales enable you to meet the weight specifications of your buyer, thus preventing losses by being over or under target.
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Weighing regularly enables growth rates to be boosted to avoid costly winter housing, or enable housed cattle to be finished more rapidly to avoid being turned out – thus reducing stocking rates in spring.
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Weighing enables the precise dosing of cattle and sheep with anthelmintics, preventing wasteful and expensive overdosing, while avoiding the risk of poor performance or developing parasite resistance through under-dosing.
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Finally, weighing livestock regularly gives you much more management control of your livestock with the opportunity to improve their profitability.
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