LINKING paddock, crush-side, feedlot and abattoir data is now possible to lift productivity and profitability in commercial beef enterprises.
Speaking at the Herefords Australia Breed Forum on May 14 at Wodonga, Optiweigh support manager Max Laurie said agtech was rapidly improving productivity within the beef industry.
“It is products like Optiweigh and Black Box that are allowing us to measure efficiencies to help us increase productivity and reduce those labour units. In future, there will be lots of data, more remote monitoring, automated tasks in livestock monitoring and machinery, resulting in improved production efficiency, less labour and helping our environmental management,” Mr Laurie said.
“We are starting to see that in terms of autonomous spray drones, virtual fencing, pasture monitoring, livestock weighing, and asset monitoring. All these tools are sitting there – it is just how they might be implemented into your business.”
Mr Laurie said Optiweigh measures minimum and maximum liveweights, the average daily gain and summarises the spread of weights within the mob.
He said variations and trends in average daily weight gain could pinpoint impacts of animal health issues such as worm burdens, or pasture quality and quantity, water quality and even genetics.
“There are productivity gains to be achieved just out of monitoring livestock more readily and removing those dips. As the margins get tighter and input costs increase, these tools are there to help producers make those management decisions,” he said.
“In terms of increasing average daily gain we have been seeing with producers using Optiweigh it has been in pasture utilisation and optimising grazing rotation.
“Picking up nutritional deficiencies has also been important when dealing or moving livestock, along with the impact of rain, heat and cold weather.”
Mr Laurie said the next step for Optiweigh was to run weight gain data in parallel with feed conversion efficiency and methane emissions using industry collaboration.
“We have to have more efficient stock and part of that comes down to the collaborations we have now – there are products out there picking up feed conversion and grazing optimisation to ensure producers manage their pastures to maximise their animal’s performance.”
Herefords Australia immediate past chief executive officer Michael Crowley said feedback was critical for producers to know the impact of their breeding programs on their customer’s business.
While collating MSA data from abattoirs, Mr Crowley found the Black Box Co dashboard had all the data in one spot – feedlot entry weight, average daily gain, animal health treatments, feed conversion, exit weight, carcase weight and carcase data including MSA Index.
“There are big opportunities to send information forward with animals through the supply chain,” he said.
Black Box Co senior client manager Edwina Warby said the centralised data storage and analysis software integrated with all crush side systems and data received from the abattoir.
“Black Box Co uses an interactive dashboard to turn raw data into insights and increases transparency across the supply chain,” Ms Warby said.
“The internal analytics enable visual reporting and analytics for on-farm and feedlot performance and carcase data. The feedlot feedback system enabled the sharing of data back to feedlot suppliers.”
Ms Warby said Black Box Co worked with 30 per cent of grain-fed cattle nationally to complete the feedback loop to producers but have feedback available with many more through request.
“Many people open their carcase data, look at the dollar figure, and close it. We are working to make the data more accessible, easy to interpret, and linked back to genetic and management decisions on-farm,” she said.
“Black Box Co provides on-farm support to collect meaningful data and turn it into insights with cloud-based reports. Users can easily analyse fertility and wet rebreed performance by breed, sire, classes and age, while feedlot and carcase results can be linked back to DNA and crush-side data.
“Feedlot and carcase data, such as induction, exit and carcase weights, average daily gain, marbling and eye muscle area, MSA Index and compliance is linked to on-farm results of breeds, mobs, sires, and property of origin.”
Black Box Co integrates the animal data with other agtech software including Optiweigh using liveweight and average daily gains to predict the number of animals hitting the target weight range and financial forecasting.
