On the Head Shepherd Podcast, hosted by NextGenAgri’s Mark Ferguson, WA producer Bevan Ravenhill talks about what he’s doing to improve performance and where his focus sits to create efficiencies on farm. It’s a great listen and worth whacking on the next time you’re in the car or on the tractor for an hour.
From about the 59 minute mark, Bevan talks about how he’s using his Optiweigh Cattle Unit. Full transcript below:
“We’ve got an Optiweigh unit in our beef system already, and we know we definitely need one in our sheep program as well.
In the sheep system, the plan is to place it in the weaning pens. When we wean lambs, we’ll be able to closely monitor them—tracking entry and exit weights, pellet intake, and overall weight gain. Because we know exactly what is going into the feeders, we get clear, accurate performance data. It’s incredibly handy.
We’ll also use the unit out in the paddock at different times, such as checking what lambs weigh before weaning or at 10 weeks. We’ve just fully EID-tagged everything, so we can now track individual animals and build a really strong dataset.
On the beef side, Optiweigh has been sensational. There’s no more yarding cattle all the time—it’s a lifesaver. It saves time, labour, and stress. We have a double Optiweigh, so it weighs two animals at once, side-by-side. Our read rates have gone through the roof.
We can run an entire mob of cattle through in two days, which means three mobs a week is achievable. Our aim is to come back to the same mob every three to four weeks. The visibility we get from that is a game-changer. We know exactly when to market cattle. We know when they’re moving forward—and we know when they’ve stopped.
We’re not yet using it to compare pasture varieties; we’re using it purely to track weight gains. One group might be doing 1.2 kg/day, another 1.1, another 1.8. It means we don’t need to yard cattle constantly. We’ve got good facilities, but yarding still takes time—and with only two of us, time is precious.
Optiweigh tells us everything we need to know. If a mob of trade cattle averages 395 kg and there are 200 head, we know we can draft off 120. A few weeks before they’re due to go, we’ll run through them individually and tidy up the numbers.
Before Optiweigh, looking out the window didn’t tell me much—I’m terrible at guessing weights. I was 100 kg off the other day on a cow, and I’m no better with sheep. I can’t tell if cows are 750 or 850 kg, or if a bull is 500 or 580. It’s all just guesswork without proper data.
Optiweigh eliminates that completely. For time-poor operations, it’s an incredibly valuable tool—not only for managing livestock, but also for understanding what your grass is doing. Sure, stock might look good, but when you put the Optiweigh in place and see the numbers, sometimes they’re cranking far more than you realised. It confirms what you’re seeing and gives you confidence in your decisions.”
Have a listen to the podcast below.