Herewith the detailed program for the 2nd of our 4 weekends offered in March. Next week I will introduce the 3rd weekend’s program in more detail.
The first open weekend of 8-10 March is already fully booked with a waiting list for the next one.
15-17 March 2024
IntelliFarm™️ Sheep Management Application
Bookings Close: Friday 26 January 2024
Come check out the IntelliFarm™️ Apple and Android mobile phone application that enables us to manage our herd as well as an unlimited amount of sheep with precision.
This weekend we will expose you to the following modules:
Commercial Herd Management
- Scheduling of automated actions such as dosing program, putting in & taking out rams, when ewes lamb, cleaning pens, mangers, etc. Literally any future action you can think of can be scheduled and managed.
- Move animals to different camps. This means you know where each animal finds itself as well as the history of when they were there.
- Recording of all vaccinations and dosages. Records are also kept of all ad-hoc treatments the animal has had in its lifetime.
- Recording and record keeping of weights.
- “Scoring” or class of animals. Build and type, condition, strengths & weaknesses.
- Flags are set up for animals such as e.g. ewe that left a dead lamb in the field, or it was noticed that one of her teats was damaged. Any data that will be relevant in the future when breeding decisions have to be made.
- The management of color plates when groups are managed in “colors”. Each ewe’s coat color is indicated according to the group in which she finds herself.
- RFID or 4-number tag management. Also dealing with a double numbering system if one plate tears out.
- Loading and managing coverages. Can be either individual rams or ram groups. Coverage is linked to ewe or group of ewes.
- Bloodline management by mating lambs to ewes. Farmers can also manage bloodlines for commercial herds. This prevents inbreeding and helps with selection decisions. Of course, the benefit must justify the additional labor. Each farmer decides here whether he has a need or not.
- Recording of pregnancy results. Can be PREGNANT or NON PREGNANT or SINGLE, TWIN, ETC.
- RFID incorporated “Alerts”. This means that data is downloaded from the application directly to a DataMars XRS2 RFID handheld scanner and if the ewes or lambs have RFID tags, the scanner gives a unique message when the animal is scanned. E.g. you want to take your ewes scanned with twins out of the herd for additional supplemental feeding 4 weeks before pregnancy. It literally takes 1 minute to send the data through to the scanner and then as each ewe’s head is tapped the reader will shout a message and the ewe will be taken out. Farmers who already have XR5000 devices with “autodrafters” can send the data to the XR5000 within minutes and the “drafter” sorts the ewes.
- Then there are reports to pull and study all the data as discussed above for decision making during mating or selection.
Stud Herd Management
On top of everything mentioned in Commercial Herd Management, the stud module has the following additional functionality:
- Building of coverage list that calculates the total laparoscopy program. The application controls the allocation of ram semen to ewes to prevent inbreeding, calculates the DMS doses, calculates sponge extraction time slots as well as laparoscopy time slots. So if a veterinarian can do 40 ewes per hour, the application works out which 40 ewes are done at which hour of the day. Even the sponge extraction as well as spraying of DMS is worked out based on what time the ewe will have her procedure. All data is again sent to DataMars XRS2 scanner and the whole process is managed with the scanner.
- Electronic integration with pedigree. The application registers the lambs with their birth weights as well as the electronic update of weaning weights later. The cancellation of studs is also done directly from the application. Since Studbook sometimes has to process the data, and receive an email every day that lists outstanding updates. So there is very little logging into Logix. Everything happens on the IntelliFarm™️ application via an iPhone or Android mobile phone.
Feedlot and Feeding Management
This module is not available mainstream and will only be demonstrated on special request. I will only lightly touch the functionality during the weekend.
- The weekend has a cost of R5000 per couple including accommodation and meals (2 nights)
- Accommodation is in our luxury units at LANDRANI®, Oudtshoorn.
- We can only accommodate 6 couples per weekend.
- Bookings Close: Friday 26 January 2024
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