EID scanning and recording liveweight provides valuable data

At a glance

Marc and Naomi Cooper in partnership with Raymond and Rowena Brock
Location: Cooinda, Waipahi, South Otago
RapID tag

Challenges

• Increasing productivity within the flock. Genetic improvement so they can create an elite mob producing twins.
• Future proofing their farming operation

Benefits

• As a management tool the tags gauge liveweight and how well the farm is feeding stock.
• Record liveweights which indicate how well their mothers are milking, and mothering ability.
• Target good growth rates to get the lambs off their mothers.

Background

When Waipahi sheep and beef farmer Marc Cooper originally invested in Allflex EID ear tags for his replacement two-tooth ewes four years ago, it was a leap of faith towards his goal of increasing productivity of the farm’s commercial Coopworth/Texel ewe flock. At that time he didn’t have the technology to read the ear tags. Since then he has installed a Racewell sheep handler with built-in EID reader to record the data collected and uses a wand as back-up. “It’s probably only in the last couple of years that we’ve had the technology to start scanning and reading the information”, he says, but already that early investment is starting to pay off.