In late March, Woodcote Pty Ltd’s Optiweigh data started showing a downward trend. Despite having “amazing” forage, and cattle looking visually healthy, the mob was losing weight. Traditional diagnostics weren’t showing the full picture. Visually the mob looked good, and Faecal Egg Counts (FEC) results – both pooled and individual – came back negligible.
But the Optiweigh data wasn’t lying, the average weight was slipping.
Trusting the Data
Instead of waiting for the cattle to look like they were dropping weight, the Woodcote team used the Optiweigh trend as a trigger to dig deeper.
They brought the 349 head mob in for a yard weigh and drench on April 2nd. They ran Pepsinogen tests on six animals to check for internal parasite damage. The results confirmed their suspicions: two animals showed very high levels, and another two were moderately high.
The ‘negligible’ FEC results had been masking a real parasite issue that was eating into their bottom line.
The Turnaround
The mob was drenched (Abbey Animal Health Invictus), and the impact was immediate.
If you look at their weight over time graph (above), there is a clear break in the graph where the yarding weights correlate with the Optiweigh data, and drenching occurred … followed by a return to positive weight gain.
By late April, the results had turned around:
Average weight climbed to 350+ kg.
14-day Average Daily Gain (ADG) hit an impressive 1.4 kg/day.
30-day ADG recovered to 1.2 kg/day. The Takeaway for Optiweigh Users
This is a working example of Optiweigh operating as an early warning system or risk alert. David and Ruth Read didn’t have to wait for the cattle to lose significant condition, or for a visual impact to occur, and subsequently didn’t have to manage and budget for a significant recovery period.
By drenching based on the data trend, rather than just the calendar or FEC results, they got their steers back on track, and took full advantage of their high-quality forage.
As the team at Woodcote put it:
“Glad we made the call to investigate and drench based on the Optiweigh data”.