Pheasant Hills Grazing Tour

[kato]

I just got back from the grazing tour in Stockholm Saskatchewan.

What a terrific two days that was. There were several hundred people attending. The organizers did a wonderful job. Super hospitality, good facility, top notch speakers, interesting farm tours, and outstanding food.

Of course the BSE issues were always lurking in the background, but it was nice to get away for a couple of days and talk to other cattle people about positive things that we can be doing to improve our operations.

If they ever run another one, I would highly recommend it.

[jensend]

i couldn't attend the second day kato. how was the rfid tag demo? are they going to be readable without catching the animal? if they are useable in the pasture it would make them easier to stomach or will we be using two tags for a while if we want pasture id?

[kato]

The reader they had worked up to 18 inches away. I would say we'll need to use regular tags as well if we want to read them in the pasture.

They said there was a reader that would read from 20 or 30 feet away, but it would read all of the animals within that range, so wouldn't be much use. Too sensitive.

The best use of the tags is in a chute, which is when you are doing most of your 'record keeping' activities anyway. (Vaccinations, treatments, weighing etc...)

It was really good the way the reader and the scale controller worked together. The reader also works with a palm pilot if you want to automatically input info.

All a little pricey, but that'll come down when it gets into general use.

[jensend]

thanks. i guess if i want more info i can always talk to allflex. the palm pilot thing sounds good. i have a demo of the herd data program on mine. seems fairly useful. have to see how they work out all the compatibility issues.