Auto Drafting, Sheep
Kevin Clucus runs a finishing farm just outside of Mayfield, covering about 500 hectares of wonderfully flat Canterbury pasture. 400 hectares is irrigated and 300 of that is reserved for a specially cultivated Lumina mix, where the Lumina lambs are finished for a minimum of 35 days on chicory and clover forage.
Lumina Lambs are known for their intramuscular marbling, with a delicate, tender taste that’s remarkably consistent. For Kevin, who will do 40,000 lambs in 12 months, making sure this consistency is maintained is key, so lambs are run through the yard, weighed and drafted regularly. Traditionally, Kevin could draft around 350 lambs an hour and the task needed two people. Then Kevin visited his neighbours farm and saw the Te Pari Racewell 5-Way Auto Drafter in action.
“I just couldn’t get over the difference, how well the sheep flowed through it and how much quieter it was” says Kevin. “I was pretty sold.” Convinced of the benefits of the Te Pari Auto Drafter, Kevin pulled out the old system and we delivered the new drafter which was set up and ready to work in under 90 minutes. That’s actually longer than normal and with the Racewell DR Trailer System, we’ve been able to position the Racewell up close to a sheep race and working in around 2 minutes. Of course, Kevin’s setup is different and the Racewell won’t move from the yard where it’s now located and processing lambs at speeds which are making his work much easier.
“The speed at which it weighs is nearly twice as quick. It’s been a revelation.” explains Kevin. That speed is down to the unique setup of the weight crate, which is suspended from the weighing equipment at the top of the machine, where the integrated cells are placed. Doing this gives a low entry height and keeps the entry and exit gates separate from the weighing area. It’s fast, accurate and also means the Racewell doesn’t need to be placed on level ground. By ‘weighing from the top’ with the suspended configuration, uneven ground or inclines will not affect the accuracy of the scales. The other design feature that helps the Racewell Auto Drafter maintain speedy throughput numbers is the integrated EID reader. It loops around the entire crate of the drafter and can read EID tags regardless of position.
By keeping the entry and exit gates separate from the weight crate, animals pushing up from behind the entry gate won’t impact the weight reading for the animal inside the crate. This is especially important on Kevin’s farm where the Lumina lambs have to meet strict criteria before going to the works. “When we weigh at 28 days, we get great information, so when we notice growth rates are down it gives us a chance to do something proactive”, explains Kevin. “We can actually draft anything that’s losing weight, so we can give them a drench, put them out and look after them a little bit better. We can manage the farm in a better way.
For Kevin, the biggest benefit is the full automation offered; “You don’t need to stand in front of the sheep, so the flow keeps going. It’s very quiet…and everything flows through the yards really, really well.”
Proving just how well lambs flow through the yard are the numbers of the Te Pari Racewell 5-Way Auto Drafter versus the previous 5-way drafter at the farm, which saw between 350 to 400 lambs an hour being weighed. “Now with the Te Pari, we are doing close to 700 lambs an hour when we’re not reading EIDs and about 600-650 when we’re doing EID reads,” says Kevin. “It’s made a massive difference and it’s gone from having two people needed in the yards to just having a single person. And it’s twice as quick!”.
Half the manpower and twice the speed clearly has benefits, but speed is not the only advantage offered. The Racewell Auto Drafter can also be controlled manually via a remote control from anywhere in the yard, to stop and start drafting or manually override a draft. Of course, as you’d expect from a Te Pari product it uses a hot dip galvanised construction which is proven to last longer, leading to a higher resale value. It’s all part of a first-principles design approach where you question everything and then innovate, building a product that solves problems and offers demonstrable advantages over competitor products. This is certainly proving true for Kevin…
“I’d definitely recommend the five-way drafter. It’s an absolute game-changer for us. It’s saved us time, labour and ease. It’s just less stress on stock and people…and we spend an awful lot of time in the yards and it makes it a whole lot more enjoyable than struggling with animals.”
We couldn’t have said it better, really.