Case Studies

Using animal data to drive better decision-making

Home
Case Studies
Using animal data to drive better decision-making

Name
Aiden Coombe

Location
Manager Greenham

Aiden Coombe has been with Greenham for 9 years and manages their largest farm at Westmore, north west Tasmania. This consists of 2,700ha of grazing property which finishes ~5,500 cattle a year, including British Breed, dairy-beef and some Wagyu. Cattle are inducted at around 300kg with steers turned off around 600kg and heifers around 500–550kg live weight.

What was the challenge?

Aiden needed to be able to understand the cost of gain for the animals he managed – to allow him to optimise his inputs, stocking density.
He also wanted to be able to understand overall Average Daily Gain’s (ADGs) to allow for better mob management, rotational pasture management, and genetic selection.
Looking forward Aiden is hoping to be able to start to forecast out weights per mob.
Aiden says: ""Everything we do is about improving the land and increasing productivity so at the end of the day we’re producing better beef and more of it.

What was the process?

The previous manager used Practical Systems’ Stockbook to good effect, but Aiden needed something that had an easier user interface so that his employees could better use it.
Aiden undertook a Google search for livestock management systems and reviewed a few options to learn their functionality.
Elynx’s StockMate software emerged as the right solution for him with its interactive user experience and its functionality developed through years of feedback from Australia’s largest livestock producers.

Results

I can now understand not only my entry and exit weights, but the overall cost of every animal over its whole of life.

StockMate is set up crush-side integrating with a Gallagher TW15 via Bluetooth. Each animal has its own unique data code based on weights, categories and traits.

Elynx also integrates with the NLIS database allowing for reconciliation of animal movements.

Observing the ADG of different breeds and being able to rank optimal performers has led to being able to improve genetic selection based on superior genetics and performance.