New Program Monitors Individual Animal Performance
Vytelle (the recent combination of Vytelle IVF and GrowSafe) announces through its GrowSafe business the launch of the Beef Marketing Program to monitor individual animal performance, predict carcass weight and optimally market cattle in the feedlot.
The Beef Marketing Program is specifically designed for feedlots and offers producers unique insights into individual animal performance that translates to growth management, labor optimization and improved animal well-being by significantly reducing stress related to weighing animals compared to traditional chutes. The program comprises hardware, software, a comprehensive warranty program and a suite of analytics services.
“Unlike any other time in history, global beef industries are faced with producing more product with fewer resources and in a more sustainable manner. Our Beef Marketing Program will transform how feedlots manage their operations,” said Gareth Llewelyn, VP of GrowSafe Operations. “The powerful combination of GrowSafe hardware and analytics enables feedlot managers to manage animals as individuals, reducing variation, optimizing this use of feed and predicting carcass weights and harvest dates. The net result is a significant boost to profitability.”
GrowSafe Beef continuous in-pen weighing system, the industries most advanced weighing technology, is at the core of data collection for the Beef Marketing Program. GrowSafe Beef measures individual animal partial body weights and watering behavior while animals drink at the water trough. The technology weighs every second an animal is standing at the trough, which can equate up to 450 weights a day. Unlike traditional chute weights, which provide a single weight and can negatively impact labor and cattle performance, GrowSafe Beef continuously weighs cattle in the pen providing individual animal growth curves. The Beef Marketing Program gives you access to manage variation by individual animals and pens to market more uniform loads of cattle.
On aggregate, an analysis of over 29,000 samples show 99.8 percent correlation between same-day GrowSafe Beef and chute weights. A full-scale study consisting of 4.59 million weight records across different days, times and animals demonstrates that GrowSafe Beef technology is three times more consistent than chute-weighing on an individual animal basis. This precision data collection allows GrowSafe to accurately measure phenotype in genetic testing facilities as well as measure and monitor individual animal performance in feedlot production systems.
“Data collection and analysis of individual animal performance and behavior are critical to the future of optimizing production in feedlots,” explained Guy Ficeto, GrowSafe’s Feedlot Marketing & Sales Director. He went onto say, “Feedlot managers can improve the efficiency of their operations by viewing the daily performance of animals and optimizing labor around the data. Concurrently, managers can use insights of the program to monitor the well-being of animals by detecting changes in behavior. The Beef Marketing Program was designed with these daily practices in mind which allow us to help producers manage what is unseen today.”
The Beef Marketing Program is available globally to feedlots. To learn more about the Beef Marketing Program, visit https://growsafe.com/our-solutions/feedyard/.
Related stories:
Vytelle, GrowSafe Combine To Accelrate Bovine Biotechnology
