Video transcript: Electronic identification
Featuring
- Scott Newbey (Interviewee, Farmer)
- Lucy Anderton (Interviewee, Economist)
- Rhys Jones (Voiceover)
Scott Newbey:
[00:00:01] Worm resistance in general throughout the state is becoming a problem. And we've got to use all the tools at our disposal to combat resistance issues.
[00:00:10] My name’s Scott Newbey, I'm on a family property at Broomehill. I farm with my brother Wayne and wife Rebecca. We’ve been here for a long time, over a century. We are putting in 2000 hectares of crop and running about 3000 sheep and we're looking to incorporate more sheep technologies in our farm. Normally we drench with an ordinary drench gun based on the approximate heaviest animal weight. But generally there's always a few outliers, there’s a few fatties in there that are well over weight, so they're getting under drenched and obviously the smaller sheep in that practice are getting well over drenched. So there's wastage of product as well as potential for resistance occurring in those large animals who aren't getting an adequate dose rate. So this product solves both of those problems. We're trialling the Automed gun and using it with the sheep handler that we've got to drench sheep based on their body weights. Using premium drench products there’s potential for real savings in drenching based on body weight and reduced problems with worm resistance with drenching at the correct weights. It’s got real promise for some good financial return and some good animal health benefits as well. The Automed works with the sheep coming into the handler. If they're in the correct position you take a weight, the weigh head then transmits via Bluetooth the weight to the app running on an Android device and then the Android device talks to the Automed gun to give it the correct dose rate for that animal. And if the EID function’s turned on it will record that dose against that individual. Using these type of products adds value to using your sheep handler. Having the equipment available to you and the load-bars and the weigh head it's just a logical add on to using this type of system in the sheep yards. I think if you are drenching a lot of sheep with expensive drench you pay for an Automed in no time at all.
Lucy Anderton:
[00:02:37] So the economic analyses shows that the Automed costs 1420 dollars as the initial setup cost and has some ongoing costs with an ongoing subscription. The net present value for Scott is 26,500 dollars and he has a benefit cost ratio of twenty five point eight which means for every dollar he invests he gets twenty five point eight in return. It will only take him one year to pay for the initial investment.
Scott Newbey:
[00:03:12] Well I think in 20 years time everyone in our industry with the capacity to weigh their sheep will be using some sort of product like this. It's just at the moment it's new technology. It's frustrating at times it can be really challenging getting it to work but going forward this technology is just the way of the future, it's where we're going.
Rhys Jones:
[00:03:35] The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development through its Sheep Industry Business Innovation project made possible by Royalties for Regions is supporting and sharing new technologies in the sheep industry. This is improving labour efficiency in the sector and making it easier all round to run sheep.