Making Cattle Health Treatments easier at VRP Farms Feedlot

Treating large numbers of cattle during induction to a feedlot can be hard work for staff. Manual dosing guns can cause hand strain and dosage may not be very accurate.
Find out how VRP Farm Feedlots use the Revolution Auto Dosing Gun and Te Pari Scale System integrated with FeedIt Software to make cattle health treatments easier and more accurate.

Craig Paskal is the Operations Manager, Co-owner of Van Raay Paskal Farms in the Iron Springs/Picture Butte area in Alberta, Canada. The company has 8 feedlots, with about 110 to 120 feedlot employees. 

“It’s always busy around here, we’re always looking for ways to make things more efficient, easier on the people, for a better quality of life and that’s kind of why we went for this Te Pari Gun.” Said Craig.

The Te Pari Revolution Smart Dosing Gun is an auto-calibrated handheld dosing system that connects to various Scale Systems and Feedlot Software programs. The Scale System or software communicates with the Dosing Gun to deliver the exact dose based on the actual weight of each animal. It delivers an accurate and consistent dose based on whether the application is an injection, oral drenching or pour-on. Various barrel sizes and attachments are available.

The Revolution Dosing Gun is powered by two Lithium-ion batteries that last all day long for over 2000 doses of 50ml Pour-on or 1000+ doses of 3ml injection. The battery-powered operation of this auto dosing gun reduces hand strain to make all-day use easier on staff. At the pull of a trigger, the dose is delivered accurately while making the task quick and EASY.

Pictured above is one of the staff at VRP Farms priming their Revolution Dosing Gun. This is done before use and before fitting the injection needle.

“We use this system in our operation mostly when processing when you’re giving larger doses. We like it because of its ease of use and it’s easy for the people to use and I know using syringes that are mechanical and manual can be hard on people after a while, so that’s a big benefit of why we use it and also for proper dosage.” Said Craig.

The FeedIT system that VRP Farms use is Feedlot Management software from the company ITS Global. FeedlT is designed for background feeders and finishing feedlots looking for tools to enhance productivity and improve efficiency by taking the guesswork out for them. FeedIT records and stores data and allows you to see real-time reports and accurate historical data for benchmarking and informed decision making.

“We started using this I believe about 2 years ago. Drew from ITS asked if we wanted to demo some (Revolution Dosing Guns). I guess maybe we were a little bit sceptical at first but as we started to use them and understand the advantages and why they were good we really liked them and we continued and we use them at all of our locations now.” Said Craig.

Drew from ITS Global is very happy with how the Revolution Dosing Gun works together with the FeedIt system.

“Partners like Te Pari are a no brainer for us (ITS Global), they have a very good product and a very good support system. It allowed us to integrate with them very quickly, get the product out to clients and have happy clients in the end. We got guns that are out there that have delivered 10s of thousands of doses and are still being used on a regular daily basis.” Said Drew, Managing Partner at ITS Global.

The staff at VRP Farms are also very happy with how the Te Pari Auto Dosing Gun works.

“My name is Kevin De Kreek and I’m Feedlot Admin with VRP Farms. The Dosing guns work with FeedIt really well and we use it for drugs that are based on weight and by doing that we know we’re getting an accurate dose.

The integrations between the Te Pari Gun and the ITS software is very seamless, very easy to have, and very easy to use. There’s no loops or hoops you have to go through to make it work.” Said Kevin.

Under-dosing or over-dosing of animals can be caused when the animal does rates are based on average mob weights or from the incorrect use of manual dosing equipment.

The weight of each animal within a mob will vary and the way to ensure each animal is dosed accurately is to weigh each animal at the time of dosing and then calculate the dose based on this actual weight.

The Revolution Dosing Gun from Te Pari connects to your scale system to do this automatically for you. It quickly automatically adjusts the dose rate required for each animal based on its weight. The dose is calibrated as soon as the scale reads the animal's weight so the whole process is very quick and easy.

“Over and underdosing cattle is just as bad either way – you could be underdosing and the cattle aren’t receiving what they’re supposed to which could cause health issues and over-dosing is obviously a cost and with the cost of what some of these pharmaceuticals are today that can add up very, very quick.

The Te Pari Dosing Gun and Scale System we use is the same everywhere we’re using it. We have a couple of different scale heads that it integrates into. We found that using the integration from ITS to our scale system is very accurate vs a snapshot or someone typing a weight in. It’s always live and we find it works well and it ties right in with the Te Pari gun so we like that.

“I would recommend it because of its accuracy, its ease of use, its integration with ITS is seamless and probably number one it’s good for our people. It makes it a lot easier to do these jobs and these are the kind of things we’ve got to be looking at nowadays, to be more efficient, to get things done more efficiently and make it easier on the people that are doing this all day.” Said Craig.

Watch the full story in the video below

 

 

Find out more about the Revolution Dosing Gun or contact the Te Pari team for free advice about how to set up an Auto Dosing Gun for your farming operation.