Reviewing innovation across the industry

A mix of equipment, technology and management options can enhance production and handling systems: 

• Crutching trailers can dramatically reduce the time and labour costs required for mustering sheep for crutching.  
• Satellite yards can reduce mustering times for key operations, such as lamb marking.  
• Purpose-built areas for holding sheep for drought containment or production feeding assists with labour efficiency and animal production, while maintaining groundcover in dry times. 
• Self-feeders and feed-out trailers, including those with options for self-weighing trailers that allow accurate amounts to be fed out, can improve efficiency of supplementary feeding. 
• The Management calendar tool can be used to document key operations and the personnel required to perform these operations. This can identify where opportunities for improvements might lie. Check it for areas of overlap, which may place stress on labour units, or areas where activities can be combined to create efficiencies. 
• Radio frequency identification (RFID) electronic ear tags assist the recording of individual animal information. These records can then be used for developing more detailed decision-making processes or facilitating management ease.  
• An auto-drafter allows sheep to be automatically drafted into determined weight classes. This significantly reduces labour requirements and errors when selecting sale stock. 
• Working dogs can be a significant asset in an efficient pastoral operation. The presence of a team of high-quality working dogs can easily account for the wages of employees with the work they can perform.  
• Consider improvements to shearing sheds or construction of new sheds, changes to yard design, self-mustering yards for managing both livestock and feral animal control, improvements to paddock gates, stock grids and development of laneways. 
• Improvements to water systems, including telemetry, to allow remote monitoring of tanks and troughs. Remote pumping systems, such as solar pumps, provide pumping assurance (as opposed to reliance on wind) and potentially reduce maintenance costs. 
• Three shearings in two years can remove the need for one crutching operation. Depending on individual circumstances it can lead to an increase in wool harvested, improve sheep growth rates, spread marketing risk (three sale periods rather than two) and maintain price (wool must still be combing length). However, shearing three times in two years does increase costs as shearing is more expensive than crutching. In a poor season, wool staple length may be insufficient and incur heavy discounts.
• Remotely monitoring production and land systems using satellite imagery is becoming more accessible. These maps can be used for property development and seasonal monitoring.