Tru-Test Drafting.
Drafting – Splitting Animals Up!
It may seem a strange topic but most of us understand drafting, separating animals from each other. We do it all the time, for different reasons, at different times of the year. Sometimes this is based on visual observation, drafting out the limping sheep, sometimes physical reasons, based on the weight of the animal. But we are not limited to that, we have the capability to draft animals based on data we collect and have collected, that maybe performance data, EBV’s, pedigree information, animal attributes or groups of animals.
Splitting out the cull ewes for example, pulling out the high index ram lambs or splitting ewe up into tupping groups. There are many more possibilities.
Automated or Manual
We should not consider drafting to be automated, though an automated drafter is a good bit of kit and amazing to watch. Manually drafting is just as efficient. Simply displaying on the screen of the weigh head that this is the animal is the point, you really do not need to know which gate to open.
Drafting on Data or Animal Attributes
When it comes to identifying animals, we need EID! EID lets us read the tag and find the animal information. We also need a weigh head that contains the individual animal details and at least one attribute to identify draft.
Given you may have multiple reasons for selecting an animal sometimes it is much easier to simple have an attribute to identify the draft, for example a simple number or group indicator.
The weigh head
There are very few weigh heads that allow you to upload animal information into them, in fact Tru-Test only has one the XR5000, it is there top of the range model and can control an auto drafter and store 1000’s of animals with associated animal attributes. You can even add your own animal attributes.
We started back in 2002 with the Tru-Test XR3000
The XR3000 was the first weigh head that we used as it had the capability to control the drafter and draft on animal data. Back in 2002 the fact that the XR3000 only had 8 data fields associated with each animal did not worry us, it had 8 more data fields than anything else! The 8 data field called ‘Life Data’
You could configure your XR3000 unit to draft sheep, either manually as the unit displays arrows, or automatically with appropriate equipment. The XR3000 could be configured to draft based on weights or life data, and it was the life data that provided us the ability to use the unit to select specific animals. By adding a field called 'Draft' to the life data, then setting the field to a number for associated animals we could sort the animals. This meant we could group animal with our software, upload the data to the XR3000 and go and find the animals outside.
FarmIT 3000 lets you analyse breeding performance, problems and diseases and weights, you may identify animals with either good or bad criteria and add these animals to managements groups for later selection. The FarmIT 3000 Tru-test control panel (built in communication with the Tru-test unit) then allows you to select management groups and add the selected animals to the unit for drafting. For example if we create a management group of 'CULL' ewes we can upload these to the Tru-test unit with a drafting code, thus allowing us to sort the cull ewes from the rest.
TRU-TEST XR3000
The arrow pointing right is the drafting indicator, telling us this is the one we want
Racewell drafter(now Tapari) controlled by the XR3000
This video was shot by Mr Rob Hodgkins. Rob and his family were early adopters of EID and EBVS producing New Zealand Romney's in the UK. Wairere UK
The XR5000
XR5000
Tru-test replaced the XR3000 with the XR5000 in around 2012. The new weigh head built on the capability of the XR3000 and soon became our favourite. It added many more life data field and removed one of the problems, uploading life data no longer wiped the unit. So now if you had 15 EBV’s for your sheep you could upload all of them!
It also has nested drafting criteria, i.e you could configure the drafter to select the ‘Rams’, over 35 Kg, with a Index over 150!
OK life just became a little more complicated, but it did do it. The main problem being it did what you told it to do. Many farmers have been left scratching their head after all the sheep went right!
So again sometimes it is simpler to have a group (Dgroup for drafting Group) attribute on which to find the sheep, so those with a 1 go left, those with a 2 go right, and everything else straight on.
NO TAG – NO EID
Of course! checking if the animal is in a group only works if it has it’s EID tag and the tag is read by the EID reader. So the weigh head also has a NO EID routine and can draft animals into a specific pen if the tag does not read. When manually drafting this is up to you.
3 Ways, 5 Ways and multiples
Most auto drafters are 3 way drafters, though 5 way drafters are available. However there are times when even 5 ways is not enough, so sheep may have to go round the drafting system 2 or 3 times, for example if splitting 1500 ewes up into 10 groups for tupping. This is however normally the exception rather than the norm.