Head Shepherd
Mark Ferguson from neXtgen Agri brings you the latest in livestock, genetics, innovation and technology. We focus on sheep and beef farming in Australia and New Zealand, and the people doing great things in those industries. To learn more about neXtgen Agri, visit www.nextgenagri.com.
Head Shepherd
Real-Time Livestock Monitoring with Bill Mitchell of Optiweigh
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This week on the podcast we have Bill Mitchell, co-founder of Optiweigh, discussing the Optiweigh system and its unexpected impacts on the farm businesses that are already using the technology.
Optiweigh was founded 10 years ago by Bill and Jacqui Mitchell after they decided there must be a better way to closely monitor cattle weights, rather than running them into the yards every week. “There was a walk-over weighing system that I saw first in sheep. And it was just like, how on earth do I make this work on our farm without it taking more effort than it saves?” explains Bill.
However, getting cattle to put all four feet on the scales was trickier than they first imagined. “I don’t know why I even bothered,” says Bill. “But I thought, I'll collect some two feet weight and take them to the yards and weigh them there too, and see if it's any good.” It turned out that it worked, despite them both not daring to believe it. Then in 2019, the drought forced them to destock, and so they seized the opportunity to launch Optiweigh.
From then on, Optiweigh has gone from strength to strength. Every day there is a new revelation about the usefulness of their technology. The immediate nature of the data means producers can see changes in weight instantly and see the impacts of their management decisions in real time.
“People have done it to manage their grazing rotations. They've done it to look at the different pastures and different feed types, supplementary feed types or otherwise to look at a change of feeds or compare weight gains on different feeds,” explains Bill.
It’s also been used to help identify animal health issues - such as the impacts of too-high stocking rates or dirty dam water - that may have otherwise gone unnoticed until it was too late.
Optiweigh is being used around the world, from extensive grassland systems to feedlots.
Recently, the team at Optiweigh have been working with AgScent (our guests on the podcast next week - make sure to tune into that!) to measure methane whilst the cattle are being weighed. They are also looking to create a sheep weighing system.
Bill hopes that Optiweigh will become a staple in livestock farming, providing a variety of data that not only improves farm management but also contributes to environmental sustainability by continuously monitoring animal metrics such as weight, methane emissions, body condition scores and overall health status.
If you would like to know more about Optiweigh, you can visit their website here:
https://www.optiweigh.com.au/
Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited.
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Welcome to Head Shepherd Bill Mitchell .
Speaker 2Thanks , mark , pleasure to be here .
Speaker 1Great , and we were just talking before we started recording . You've got a bit of shepherd experience in New Zealand .
Speaker 2Yes , great to be on the Head Shepherd . It just reminds me of my summer spent shepherding on the Dingleburn up the side of Lake Hawea Magnificent spot .
Speaker 1And I thoroughly recommend anyone out there googling Ding dingleburns . There should be . Surely there's something on socials . I think I actually put something up on socials . There was a drive-in there once . It's a special place to get into .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's a really unique spot .
Speaker 1Indeed , bill . We're here to talk about Optiway , and you and Jackie have obviously developed that system . What was life like before Optiway ? I guess so you were farming there in the New England , is that right ?
Speaker 2Yes , mark . So Jackie and I had both done the kind of university and a bit of corporate work and then we decided to go full-time farming and raise our kids on the farm . So we transitioned the place from a traditional superfine merino business into a cattle backgrounding and finishing grass-fed finishing operation . So we were just busy doing that , spending an enormous amount of time in the cattle yards , weighing cattle .
Speaker 1Yeah , which is where all good innovations come from . Some either mostly displeasure , not normally pleasure , but yeah , yeah . So yeah , that's obviously where the idea spawned out of , and before we get into that , I've got yeah . The toughest question for the day is what have you last changed your mind about ?
Speaker 2So people who know me well , Mark , would say I've changed my mind like the weather .
Speaker 1Good .
Speaker 2And I suppose and I do , I know I do because I'm constantly trying to weigh up two sides of any decision and take on new information and that results in a lot of change of mind . The last one , the last significant one I reckon was around our partnership with Accent on the methane measuring in the Optiways , because I initially I sort of didn't dare believe that that we were going to be able to make this fly and and there was a few external doubts coming at me and some new informations that we've had over the past couple of months has has led me to me to really firmly come to the belief that set up that partnership and the way we've structured the physical stuff is really going to work .
Speaker 1Excellent , and we've got accent coming on the show sometime soon , so that'll be a nice little connection to the jigsaw piece . So yeah , that's good . Yeah , the quote I like to use that frustrates my wife is strong opinion is loosely held , which is so . The ability to change my mind is a bit of a feature of me as well .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's hard when there's always new bits of information coming into anything , isn't it ?
Speaker 1Yeah , that's right , bill . Most innovations in ag are viewed as overnight successes , when in reality most of them are sort of a 10-year overnight success . When did the OptiWay journey begin , and what's that journey been like so far ?
Speaker 2Well , interestingly , it began about 10 years ago , probably almost to the month , yeah right . Yeah , probably almost to the month . Yeah , so the journey began in 2014 when we were weighing these cattle . We had a lot of cattle coming in and going out and we were constantly trying to work out where they were up to and there was walkover weighing about . Actually , I saw it first in sheep and it was just like how on earth do I make this work on our farm without it taking more effort than it saves ?
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2And then just I remember just sitting in a paddock with cattle and they're all up around the ute licking the mirrors and going . I wonder if they'd stand on a platform if it was in the paddock , yeah , and then I don't know why I even bothered to . I could tell they put two feet on it and they were happy to do that , but I couldn't get them to put all four feet on and I don't know why I even bothered . But I thought , well , I'll collect some two-feet weight and take them to the yards and weigh them and see if it's any good and just did that and then thought , oh yeah , that's interesting and didn't really .
Speaker 2Another one of those didn't really dare to believe it type things and then found that it did look good . And then different size mobs I'd throw my homemade little two-foot weigher in with them every time before we were going to bring them to the yards . And then I suppose there was a couple of years before we actually started to believe it . And then Jackie and I started using it and making it part of our system , but we were still just doing our stuff . And then that all changed in 2019 when we had what people who look at the numbers actually say is not a one-in-100-year drought , it was a one-in-1,000-year drought , so we were… .
Speaker 1That's amazing .
Speaker 2It was pretty amazing . It was pretty amazing Like , yeah , our historical lows were around 500 mils of rain and we had 185 . Yeah , yeah , so yeah , and we had 185 . Yeah , so yeah , we were destocked completely . And then I've been talking to a few people and a friend of mine , ian McCamley , up at Rolston , who said , oh yeah , that'd be great , and so , with nothing to do on the farm , it was kind of the drought project . Let's make a couple of these and see if anyone wants to buy them .
Speaker 1Yeah , excellent . Yeah , we won't dwell on that drought , but I don't think I've . I mean , I've been around a bit and seen a few droughts , but nothing quite like driving through the New England in the end of 2019 or early 2020 , I think before COVID , when the bushfires were going . So there was a smoke , haze and dust and it was , yeah , the closest thing to hell I've ever seen anyway .
Speaker 2Yeah , no , we don't really do droughts very well in the UK .
Speaker 1No , no , yeah , no , that was certain . Anyway , out of those times , good things come . Actually , we're talking on a podcast because of COVID , when I , for some things , locked up , not being able to travel to Australia , so I decided to start a podcast , but you know , not quite as significant as a technology company , but anyway , it's small steps . If we do , yeah , just have a quick , I guess , cook stew of the OptiWay technology and some of the use cases . I guess , just yeah , what it does , how it does it and what it looks like for those that haven't seen it .
Speaker 2Yeah . So if you haven't seen it , it's a bit like a half a cattle crash Mark with a lick block up the front . It's got a tag reader , just like a crash would . It's got a set of scales under a platform and it's got a little communications . It's got a battery and a solar panel and a communications model and some wheels and you tow it to the paddock , you stick a nice sweet , dry lick in the front of it , takes a front feet weight of the animals , does a bit of processing on site , sends that up to the cloud and then you get a sample of the animals every day and in most situations , a good enough sample to tell you how that mob , where that mob's up to what they weigh . And as such , it was just designed to . Instead of getting these cattle to the yards , I'll take the Optiway to the cattle .
Speaker 2Yeah , and that was really . That was what I did it for and that was what a lot of people initially bought a unit for and that allowed them and the most obvious use case for that was well , here I've got some cattle . I'm trying to put weight on them , get them to a certain weight for market . I don't want them to go overweight . I don't want them to go underweight , but I want to get as much weight on them as I can , and so there was a very clear value proposition that you could make better decisions around selling , put more kilos on the truck without having to be getting them in all the time and weighing them .
Speaker 1Yeah , excellent . So we'll keep exploring as we go through .
Speaker 2Yeah . What sort of evolves from that , what sort of leads on from that is to then talk about people who started leaving it with the cattle all the time to unhook knowledge around weight gain . Nigel karen explains that a lot better , better than me , yeah .
Speaker 1So yeah , nigel , obviously he's one of your , one of your fan boards , for sure , and , um , while the time this is out , he will have recently been on head shepherd talking about it . Obviously you don't get every cow every time . I've sort of had a bit of a play in sheep for a different purpose and some just don't turn up . But obviously you get enough of the mob to give you a really good indication of what's going on at the mob level , and we know that you don't need to get many of the herd . In that case , sorry to get an accurate assessment of what the average of the herd is up to .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , it's frustrating that we can't get all the animals , but we do sometimes , but not often . Yeah , yeah , but it's been really , really interesting to watch people sort of take that initial use case and then turn it into something more and monitor the weight and the changes in weight day to day , and people have done it to manage their grazing rotations .
Speaker 2They've done it to look at the , the different pastures and different feed types supplementary feed types or or otherwise to look at change of feeds or just compare weight gains on different feeds . Animal health , identifying animal health issues , and we've had a lot of examples of that . We've got this really funny thing at the office where we say the most common call in because we kind of keep in touch with people because set of scales in a paddock , things can go wrong . And so the most common call , of course , is I've forgotten my password , I can't log in . But next to that it's can you check my unit please ?
Speaker 2Because these cattle aren't performing like I expect them to . They're on really good feed and they're not gaining weight or they're not gaining as much weight or possibly they're even losing weight . So the first thing you've got to do is go through the process of going right , we'll check the reports , we're getting back on the load bars and they look to be behaving , and we get them to check their weight and , yes , that all looks good . There's not a rock stuck under it or something , but it's so good , because then that leads into a discussion with well , what is the reason the cattle aren't performing ? And there's been some really interesting stuff unpacked , sometimes involving a vet getting called , but invariably around animal health or nutrition but even mob size .
Speaker 2And we had a mob , big weight range , big mob size and losing weight . And he split them into three and kept the OptiW with the middle third and they started putting weight on again .
Speaker 1Hmm , yeah , it's intriguing . I guess that's where I don't know . That's what excites me about technologies that add new information to a farming system is that we assume we put them on a good yeah , we put animals on good pasture and assume they're all going to grow . We assume they're all going to grow at the same rate and they're all going to do amazing things . But there's lots of things that we don't understand about what they're actually eating out there and how balanced that room is , and all sorts of stuff that we just , yeah , basically the only way that we will know that is if the animal does the talking . And in does the talking . And in cattle they don't do a lot of talking , they do a bit of bellowing , but their weight is the best indication of happiness .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's water quality , so we've seen that as well . Yeah , yeah . With dams and big cattle and the weight tapers off after three days when they've mucked up the dam .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , yeah , intriguing . I know I've seen a couple of sheep versions getting around , not early versions of , or I don't know . Anyway , that's it . How far down the track is a sheep version of this , Is it ? I assume front feet weighing works in sheep , but maybe sheep don't behave as well .
Speaker 2No , they're behaving pretty well , mark , we've got a few units out there . We've got a few in production . Yeah , we're just trying few units out there . We've got a few in production . Yeah , we're just trying to work out , we're trying to find out what we don't know at the moment . Yeah , we think we're right , but we're just going through that process of just slowly getting them out so we can , you know , we make sure it's all working before we go full pelt , and we've just got to chew through a good swag of cattle orders too and find time in production .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , and we'll talk about that as well . I know that's a bit of a challenge . Yeah , sheep will be interesting as well . So I guess all similar use cases really it's monitoring those things that give us an indication that something's going wrong at mob level yeah , there seems to be a lot of .
Speaker 2There's certainly a lot of interest in in it . So we we are behind the eight ball on that , unfortunately , but we're we're doing our best yeah , can't do everything at once .
Speaker 1Yeah , I guess one of guess . One of the things you would have to learn early on is what cattle like , more than other stuff getting the attractant . It's obviously based on an attractant and the reason they turn up , although cattle are naturally inquisitive , so that helps . But have you learned much about what cows like to get near ?
Speaker 2Yeah , we have . We've learned that sweet , dry licks are , generally speaking , the best of all . Yeah , something that smells really smells a big part of it as well .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2But from there there is a whole range of stuff that people use .
Speaker 1So obviously you started in Australia and that'll be your strongest market . But I've seen on socials there's a few getting around how many are out total and which sort of countries they got to .
Speaker 2There's about 750 out in total now , only about 30 units overseas , and they're kind of spread out . There's a few in the UK , canada , us , uruguay and a few in New Zealand . So we're just trying to find a few early adopters to prove up the use case in those markets and then we're getting close to a point where we could decide how to take it from there in each one of those markets now , because they're going pretty well . But every market , yeah , there's different systems at play . Housed animals , new Zealand , it's all about the seems to be all about the dairy heifers and getting them up to weight .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , the UK is all about dairy beef and weight gain on that , yeah right , yeah , yeah , well , I guess dairy heifers what you paid per kilo , per kilo that you put on . Then there's a yeah , there's a definite driver to get some more . I will know that you're putting kilos on , or it's pretty much bankable in that case and be same in dairy beef here , I imagine . So , yeah , you can imagine that there should be plenty of a market for that , at least here in New Zealand and all over the place .
Speaker 2Sorry , $7.50 that Sorry . Sorry , I was going to say I imagine Dairy Beef's getting pretty big in New Zealand as well , isn't it ?
Speaker 1Yeah , it's been big for a long time and it's one of those things that you put a kilo on , you get paid for the kilo , kind of thing . So it's like they're sort of trying to roll all the way through . So it's definitely a white game game with those , and so you'd imagine that that would be something that if they didn't smash the unit up , that would be good for them . They're pretty good at wrecking stuff , bulls .
Speaker 2We've been through the process of having every cord that could be chewed has been chewed , although I've got to tell you we did mess up a bit with our first sheep versions , because I didn't realise that sheep were that much better at getting stuff and wrecking it than cattle .
Speaker 1They are amazingly good at finding something to chew on , and all that .
Speaker 2Yeah , they can get their nose in past where you can't get your fingers in .
Speaker 1Nothing like yeah , as I said , we're playing around with the camera stuff , but yeah , putting technology in a paddock is a good way to find out how sheep can wreck it . We did have a bull in one of our sheep paddocks once which completely trashed our camera unit . So yeah , I had great fun with that . So 750 , that's obviously I , I guess from I'm picturing you with your arc welder in the shed to build the first one . Obviously , there's been a lot of learning , a lot of you having to become quite a different or very different business and very different skill sets than running cattle .
Speaker 2Yeah , and what we have to do in the business has kind of changed as it's grown too , because it's suddenly evolved from having to have a business that revolves around trying to sort of convey the fact that this system works and the value proposition to actually now we're dealing with a lot more customers and a much bigger production schedule . So trying to keep all that going under one roof has been a hell of a learning experience .
Speaker 1Yeah , no doubt I know for sure . Knowledge is power is a . I think it was pretty short . It was a Jefferson quote that I like to use all the time . Yeah , we've sort of talked about this a bit before , but I guess talk us through some of the feedback of what you've heard that would save people time , save people money or often made them money through using the OptiWay systems .
Speaker 2Yeah , mark , the most immediate one is getting your marketing right on the cattle and being able to not make decisions based on guesswork , and that can result in in a lot of time and labour save , but a lot of extra return as well . Knowledge around the drivers of weight gain is huge , though , and it's much bigger than just getting your marketing right , and I think we've only just tapped the surface there . But the really cool thing about that whether it's animal health or it's supplementary feeding or pastures or whatever it is , the beauty of it is that there's a productivity gain , which is a financial benefit to the farm , but it actually also translates into lower kilos of methane per kilo of meat produced , so it's directly into your environmental metrics that everyone's starting to have to worry about .
Speaker 1Yeah , definitely , and every time you think things are going well and they're not , that's essentially just well . You're burning time and you're burning methane for no gain and so both of those things go together . And yeah , obviously , money and farming is all about velocity getting animals through and out the gate as quick as possible at good target weights In any grazing business . It's about doing it well . So knowing , learning those things and I think that's the same with a lot of technology , it's kind of what you learn about your business is almost as valuable as knowing that they're up to weight and you can bring them in and send them off is one thing . But learning that when I put them in there under these conditions , that they didn't grow last year , so I won't do that again next year and or although they've probably got a parasite load that I didn't pick up like I know nigel's on social media talking about that the weight drop was was the immediate indication to get in there and sort some parasites out .
Speaker 1And yeah , there's lots of those . Once you've got knowledge you've got , once you've got information that you can , you can act on that , which or at least learn from that , and sometimes you can't act because you don't have any other paddocks to go in or they've just got to be there and grow slowly , but at least you know that's happening . We sort of covered this briefly before . But , yeah , the balance of keeping up with just getting units out the door now , with continuing to innovate , even like within the cattle system , but then there's the weak pressure on you to get that sheep system out there how are you keeping that balance ? And is it when balance is an overused word ? It's impossible . But you're obviously having to go on your staff and trying to work out resourcing and , yeah , that could be a significant challenge .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's been a challenge . It's still a challenge . It's still a challenge , mark . We've been really lucky to be able to get some really great staff on board who are keeping the production side going , and that's allowed Jackie and me to focus a lot on the kind of strategic side of the business . And , yeah , we have other members of the team who are focusing on new developments as well and the developments on the sheep side . So that seems to be working and Jackie's looking after things on the home front too , while I spend a lot of time in here trying to navigate all that .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , that's significant challenges . No doubt the partnership with Accent is going to be interesting . So we will have Accent on soon talk about their tech . But obviously , while cattle are in there licking their sweet dry lick , is that chasing methane at that point , or is that pregnancy or what's the egg-scent partnership going to be ?
Speaker 2It's methane at this stage , mark , so the pregnancy stuff you've got to get right onto the nose which we can't do easily voluntarily , so we're chasing the methane . The animals stand there and spend an average of two minutes on the unit after the lick , so there's a good spend an average of two minutes on the unit after the lick , so there's a good amount of time and it's really cool . You can watch the methane go up when they come in . You can see it spike . When they burp , you can see it come down .
Speaker 2And what's been really cool is that there's been some university work done and found a very good correlation to other measures of direct measures of methane from individual animals .
Speaker 1So in terms of those use cases , that's if I put them on this pasture type , methane goes up , methane goes down , to try to help us carbon accounting , or is it maybe individual level stuff ? What are you thinking in terms of where people will grab that number ?
Speaker 2I think it's firstly , it's going to be a definite research interest . Yeah , and then that's probably number one . Number two , then probably is in methane inhibiting substances and directly measuring the impact of those . Yeah , then , yes , different , different pastures , different feed types , but but to me , the big , the big one is the individual animals and and being able to select for , for those animals that emit less and put on more weight and more efficient , environmentally friendly animals .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I guess even if you only get whatever percentage through there , like the value that there'll be as long as , as long as that's not heritable , as long as not all the one side group don't turn up , you'll get . You'll get good information across the group and enough good data on the side group kind of thing yeah , we've .
Speaker 2We've played around with how to get more animals on . We've . We built a double bay unit to get more animals on . We built a double bay unit . It gets more animals on . But actually putting two single bay units in a paddock also seems to really improve . It gets more than double the number of records .
Speaker 1Oh , yeah , right .
Speaker 2So that's , quite .
Speaker 1What's the ? Yeah , so what is the in terms of perfect herd size that you would recommend , or that's not a thing , and just you get a proportion of whatever's there .
Speaker 2We don't really know yet , Mark . So yeah , we know , with 50 animals we can get just about all of them . Yeah right , A single unit and then through to in a feedlot pen with 400 animals and two units . We got 393 of them there you are .
Speaker 1There's all sorts of . Call that other seven .
Speaker 2Yeah , there's all sorts of possibilities there , I think .
Speaker 1Yeah right . So yeah , getting a high proportion . What's the standard proportion ? Or is that just very much ? It depends .
Speaker 2A third in a few days to a week of the average mob size is pretty common . Yeah right , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1How long are people typically leaving them in the paddock ? I mean , you've got some that you said . Are you leaving them all the time ? Or do some people sort of dump it there for a week before they get what's going on and then move it to the next mob or the next ?
Speaker 2day . There's a lot of people using them continuously . Yeah , we've got everything . Some just go in for a day or two and then go to another mob , but then more and more we're seeing people want to do that continuous monitoring and try and pick up more information about what's going on with the weight gains . More and more people just don't want to miss out on that information in between different waypoints .
Speaker 1Excellent . So , if we fast forward 10 years , what are we looking at for Optiway ? What are your aspirations , or what's making the Olympic Games for Optiway look like ?
Speaker 2Oh , I think it's an animal monitoring station Mark . It's still got to be robust and solve all those . It's still got to be cocky , friendly , farm friendly , be able to stay out in the paddock all year long . But our brand , our OptiWay brand , is about monitoring the animals automatically and remotely in the paddock . Yeah , and our OptiWay brand is about monitoring the animals automatically and remotely in the paddock . Yeah , and yeah , I guess it's their weight , their methane , their body condition score , probably their health status . And again they're with AgCent . They're doing some really cool stuff on that side as well , and who knows what else we might want to be sticking on it yeah , yeah , no , that's right .
Speaker 1It makes a great platform to as senses evolve and stuff . Who knows what ? Yeah , what , getting animals to a isolating , a single animal to come to a spot and get , get assessed for stuff is , yeah , there should be lots of other other things that can happen . Yeah .
Speaker 2So I guess our core thing is that we focus a lot on making sure that we build something that's easy to use and can stay out in the paddock all year long and take those measurements , whatever they are .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , excellent . Well , very good , bill . I'll let you get back to building some more units and keep those customers happy , but I appreciate your time going on today to share your experiences and share some knowledge about that technology .
Speaker 2Thanks , mate , it's really really great to be invited .
Speaker 1Thanks , yeah , really appreciate it and we'll definitely put the links in the show notes so people can wonder what we've been .
Speaker 2if they're wondering what we're talking about , they'll be able to get on , have a look and uh and get in touch . Thanks very much . Good on you . Thanks , man .
