Coota Park Blue-E installed a new Automated Feeding System in 2016 to automate the recording of daily intakes of our bulls to get an understanding of which bulls are the best feed converters.

We can test 80 head at a time. The system has 8 units comprised of individual buckets/tubs that are set on load cells. The tub is being weighed every second throughout the trial.

Each individual animal has its normal NLIS tag or transponder in ear. When the animals put his head into feeder it is picked up by a scanner attached to the feeder. The weight of the tub is corresponded to the time the animal arrives to feed and when it has left the feed bunker. The difference is how much it has eaten at that one time. All this data is transmitted into our onsite office and then the data is transmitted via the internet to Canada for Growsafe/Vytelle to collate. There is an enormous amount of data to collect but we simply receive a report back each day telling us the amount each animal has eaten and alerting us to any problem eaters or issues with the scales.

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