Innovative sheep producers develop technology tools to improve management and profitability.
With a goal of continuous improvement of their high performance breeding flock, sheep producers John and Eadie Steele of Norwood, Ontario have developed and invested in new technology tools. Unable to find suitable existing systems, they have developed their own to convert electronic data into useful information for flock management and increased profitability.
“Our flock includes 2300 maternal line genetics that we’ve been building on over the past 15 years, and another 200 purebred Texels for meat production,” explains John Steele. “Our focus is on a pasture based production system, producing over 4000 lambs per year. We strive to maintain the high health of our flock, while continuing to improve performance traits and production.”
Tracking production performance on individual animals in a breeding flock of this size was becoming increasingly important although challenging. The Steele’s looked to technology tools to assist with collecting performance data and flock management. John and Eadie worked with consultant Bob Comfort to develop the Flock Hand program for their hand held Psion Workabout Pro. The Flock Hand program interfaces with the Ewe Byte computer program, for a complete on-farm sheep management system that provided a Canadian solution for their farm. Ewe Byte and Flock Hand are available to other producers through a not-for profit organization at the University of Guelph.
For the past eight years, every sheep in the flock carries RFID (radio frequency identification) tags. “We currently have about 30,000 animal records in our system, which gives us a tremendous opportunity to track trends and accuracy of estimated breeding values for traits we are looking for,” says Steele. “However, one of the challenges is once you have this much data it really needs to be in an electronic format. The next challenge was finding a solution to day to day data collection in the field and uploading it in a timely fashion to Ewe Byte.”
This led to the development of the Flock Hand Management Software with Bob Comfort as an interface with Ewe Byte and a way to collect the data in the field. The Steele’s were awarded the Ontario Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence in 2010 for the Flock Hand innovation. Future plans include the development of other field data collectors that can run Flock Hand management software and will allow them to track groups of sheep, plot feed budgets and other activities right in the field.
“The Flock Hand and Ewe Byte are central to our flock management,” says Steele. “When we first started looking for a program, most of the management software we looked at was unable to go beyond groups of animals to specific individuals, had limited flexibility and couldn’t multi-sort complex data,” says Steele. “With the shear numbers of animals we have, the Flock Hand gives us a simple way of recording day to day activities for individuals, such as births, weights, health, medications and other information. It can also give us history and EPD’s (Expected Progeny Differential) on each individual animal so we can quickly see in the field if we are sorting animals for performance, genotype, Scrapie Resistance or other traits.”
Developing the Flock Hand software came about because of the Steele’s passion for top flock management. They acknowledge that using the management system requires a good understanding of both the field applications and the computer management side of the program. “In reality, for users to really benefit they have to have a pretty comprehensive understanding of both sides of the process,” says Steele. “We both work on every aspect of the business in the field and in the office. But for operations where perhaps one partner focuses on the office management and the other on the outside flock management, it will be more challenging to realize the benefits.”
Technology Increases Accuracy and Productivity in the Field
Most recently, the Steele’s are undertaking a new project to improve parasite resistance in their flock. “We have accessed new genetics from New Zealand that were proven to carry resistance to internal parasites, which can be a significant challenge in pasture production,” explains Steele. “The genetics were a significant investment for us, so we want to make sure to find our best sheep for this project and make selections based on best EPD’s, resistance genotype to Scrapie and other traits. Out of that group, some will have a very good EPD’s, but don’t actually produce that well, so we still want to select by what they actually produced and their weaning weights.”
This process becomes a complex three-way sort, with the end result a list that can go into the RFID tag reader to find the selected individuals. “The final list was a selection of 100 ewes out of our 2500 head flock, and with the Flock Hand technology we managed to find those animals out in the field in about four hours,” says Steele. “Without that, it would have been a much more difficult and time-consuming venture. Another part of the project is to track where the genetics are in our flock and do ongoing monitoring of fecal samples from offspring of new generations to demonstrate they are shedding less eggs – something that is made possible through the Flock Hand Technology and Ewe Byte.”
John and Eadie Steele emphasize that the most important thing about having a good record system is not to identify your best sheep but to cull the poorest ones. “They are the ones that cost you money and need to be culled, as they are loss centres not profit centres for business. That is the quickest payback from RFID and software management tools.”
Contact:
John and Eadie Steele
Ph: (705) 696-1491
Email: [email protected]