Thanks to legislation requiring farmers to electronically tag all animals born on or after 1 January 2010, companies are continuing to develop time and labour saving solutions for farmers handling and managing sheep.

DM Handling Systems’ unorthodox conveyor setup is available in lengths from 1.2m (4ft) to 3.6m (12ft) in an effort to manage large numbers of sheep over a short period. It is the first electronic identification (EID) integrated conveyor and includes an auto-stop mechanism for unreadable chips, while ensuring “100% readable tags” according to designer David McGillivray.

On top of the basic machine, the company offer buyers the option of various attachments depending on the intended use including GPS and Bluetooth-based processing systems, as well as jockey wheels to make movement in the yard easier.

Also launching a new control system is Gallagher Power Fence with its sheep auto drafter to support weighing, identification and selection. It aims to ease the workload by adding extra selecting modules to sort up to 600 animals an hour into as many as five categories by weight, the company claims.

Using a plastic frame makes the automated drafter quieter and prevents metal from interfering with the signal from the EID chip, according to the company.

Gallagher’s automated drafter uses a plastic frame that it says is durable and much quieter than traditional systems. This also ensures that the signal from the chip is not influenced by metal in the surrounding area. As with the conveyor there’s an auto-stop on the gate in the case of a tag-reading problem, and a weighing system is integrated into the handler. For more information see www.gallagher.co.nz/sheepautodrafter.