Seedstock Solutions for Cattle Producers

Shaye Koester  00:00

Hey, hey, it’s Shaye Koester and I’m your host for the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast where we connect you to ranchers and beef industry enthusiasts who can help you build a more profitable operation and improve your lifestyle.  Are you looking for a community of ranchers who support and challenge you to be more profitable and proactive? Then sign-up for our monthly RancherMind events. RancherMinds are mastermind events for ranchers to come together once a month and find solutions for their own and the industry's challenges.   Stay connected by following @cattleconvos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and never miss an episode or event update by signing up for our newsletter on casualcattleconversations.com/newsletter.   If you get value out of this episode or any episode drop a comment or tip me by using the link in the show notes.  With that let’s see who our guest is today and connect you to a new resource to improve your own operation and lifestyle.

Shaye Koester  00:37

Alrighty. Well Ray, thank you for joining me on the show. It is a pleasure to have you on and I'm pretty excited to talk about scales, load bars and EIDs today, and really what that system looks like and how they all work together. But before we dive into that, can you share what your role is with Gallagher in the beef industry?

Ray Williams  00:57

Well, thank you Shaye for having me today. I have been with Gallagher for just a little over 11 years now. My role is Director of Technical Operations and Learning and Development. And over the years, I've served in many different capacities with Gallagher from being in the field and working with farmers directly and dealers. I came into the office and spearheaded our scales and EID business development for many years and then went on to do technical support advisory. And then recently, last year I became a director of technical operations. So I've kind of centered my career around technology and and helping our customers and helping our sales folks learn about new ideas and new things all through the industry. I've worked with many hundreds of dealers and end users at shows and in the field. So it's been just a wonderful time to and a great group of people to work with.

Shaye Koester  01:32

Well, that's awesome and exciting to hear. So like we talked about earlier, you know, we're talking scales, load bars and EIDs. So would you break down what each of those individual components is and kind of explain them at a basic level?

Ray Williams  01:48

Absolutely. Gallagher scales and load bars are basically a tool for us to weigh our animals and the load bars are underneath a squeeze chute or in an alleyway. So, they stand on that. And then they're connected to a scale head that reads the weight and records data that the farmer, the producer, wants to capture. What we have found over the last 25 years of doing this work is that farmers are becoming more and more tuned into the metrics of what their animals are performing with. A lot of the breed associations are requiring, you know, different metrics to be measured at the chute-side. So while we don't have to do this, by like other countries have to do it. Compulsory-wise, they have to weigh their animals and whatnot, the United States is doing it because they find value in learning about their animals from birth all the way to slaughter. I mean, at the end of the day, we just want to know what it costs to grow an animal. So by using scales and EID, we can really rifle in on some of the metrics that it takes to grow an animal correctly. In the beginning, a lot of farmers and ranchers weigh their animals and birth, they take information down about the mom and about the the the offspring itself to make sure that you know, things are okay. They make observations about if it was a hard birth or if it was a difficult situation. So it may make a difference as to how long they keep that dam and also just to understand from the time it's born to the time it's weaned, how much it's grown. And there's a lot of value in knowing what the weaning weights are, and then projecting what the tool five weights are, just to understand what I'm going to be at when I go to slaughter by animal. But all of this is taken in with the idea of making sure that I recorded all my treatments that I've given to my animals from the vaccinations that happened at the beginning. Our equipment allows you to put that information in and associated with the animals record, kind of like what we do with a medical record for one of us. It stays with the animal for its entire life. And if you've got good genetics on the farm, you want to record that information as well and make sure that you make those breeding decisions that are so critical with your equipment as well. So weights, and genetics can be all tied together in a database that a farmer can review and make note of and make a great observation decision based on all these facts instead of just you know, just guessing it to what the weight it is perhaps in such.

Shaye Koester  04:44

Yeah, absolutely. And that, you know, I was going to ask you, you know, how do you view the value of data collection in the beef industry and you've already touched on that. Do you have anything else you'd like to add as far as how much value that data can bring to the ranch? today?

Ray Williams  05:01

Absolutely. As we work with farmers and ranchers across the country, and in Canada as well, we have found that animals are worth a lot more. If I'm going to charge more for an animal because of its genetics, I need to prove it. And if I want to ship abroad, if I want to ship to the EU or to other countries, I have to send records with that animal all the way. But moreover, I want to understand, you know, is my breeding effective and is all of this information, coming to a point where it shows that the animal has made great progress, and could prove to be more profitable for the person that I sell my animals to. So it's become extremely important. As time has gone on, it's always been important. Don't get me wrong, it's always been important. Speaking with, at the National Cattlemen Association Convention, this last year, we had a lot of producers that came up and said, hey, you know, I'm finally getting the lights to come on. I need to take care of this information. I need to buy scales and EID systems, I need to understand what it is that I've done, because I can't guess anymore. I can't just assume that things are going great. It's one of the other big catalysts that changes, well, the price of drug treatments, they're very expensive. And if you dose by weight, you save a lot of money. If I overdose my animals, that's not doing us any good, and underdosing is just as bad. So when I can dose my animals by the weight that they actually are, wow, it just it makes a huge difference in the way they operate profitably. And again, what it cost to grow my animal, is all going into that formula. And I can't do without this metric.

Shaye Koester  06:44

Absolutely. Now, something that I've noticed, you know, personally, I've been involved on the seedstock and commercial side of the cattle industry. And seedstock producers are in a sense required to take some of these weights and track that information. How are you seeing weight systems and or like, you know, the scales and load bar systems and EID systems being implemented on commercial operations? What are you seeing there in the industry?

Ray Williams  07:13

Well, most of the time in commercial operations, I'm definitely looking at induction weights and such as they're being processed in. I'm also taking feed conversion and looking at all the different metrics were unified, my rations are correct, and I'm doing a great job with that. So it's a very important part of that operation, from the beginning, all the way to the end, when I'm ready to send. So we have many commercial customers that utilize our equipment to capture that data.

Shaye Koester  07:43

Well, that's awesome and exciting to see that, you know, all segments of the beef industry are really onboarding and getting on track with this data and moving forward with that. So where do you see the future of these systems going? I mean, technology is advancing so quickly. So where do you see the future of these weighing systems and EID systems going in the next five to 10 years?

Ray Williams  08:05

Well, a lot of it is about the accessibility to the data. A lot of folks that we talk to want to get it on their phone. They want to see information about the animal that I'm looking at right now. I want to be able to grab it from a cloud account, let's say or just wherever I'm at in the world, I'm wondering where things are at, right? So if I have folks that work with me or my operation, I want them to be able to input data, and be accessible to it. So there is a lot of push in the industry and technology-wise to get it more accessible. So Gallagher has been on the leading edge of this, because we're one of the only companies that's integrated both the equipment, and software together. There are a lot of standalone software companies and there are a lot of standalone equipment companies. But we've taken the leap and hired a great crew of folks that are blending both the technology of software and the equipment together and making them talk to each other. And so we get instantaneous results, wherever we're at. So the future holds more of that. There's also exciting things like drones and equipment that are in the field that actually automatically helps you weigh the animal remotely or telemetry that is in a bolus that goes into the animal and they that it sends information to a computer or to a to a Cloud account. So it makes the job of doing this work with less labor, and more efficiency, higher profits, because I'm accessibility to my data. And when we talk to groups all over that's all they talk about is okay, and make this easier for me to do. I need to have more accessibility. I need it in my hand. I need it. I just need simplicity. But I need to have access to my data. So as we work forward in our future, as our company evolves in our technology, it's about finding new ways to help farmers and ranchers get to what they need, and what they need to know most and making decisions on what they're doing on their farm or ranch. And it's, it's wonderful and exciting. We see new technology all the time. There's so many ideas out there that are coming to fruition and we are trying to partner and create an ecosystem of products and companies that we work with, that meld good with EID and scales. So we can make a complete package. The future holds a dashboard. Imagine a dashboard, with all these different things, one that monitors my water, one that monitors my fence, one that monitors my animals, and then all of this in an app that allows us to pick and choose what we want to do. Once I gather information, customers want to be able to send it to their associations to the breed associations. My cow-calf folks, they want to know what's going on in the field and be able to get to issues that may come up. But I tell you, Shaye, it's been a really exciting journey over the last five-six years. And our future looks very bright and there's no stopping, what could possibly be possible. Because people are truly thinking through...Okay, if I were able to do this differently, how would I do it? How would I make it easier? It's kind of interesting not to get into the weeds too far. But I tell you, I just recently went out to a university, and we did some talking with some students from grad students. And one of the biggest concerns that they have, and looking at technology in the future is what am I going to do when I come back to my family farm to make it successful? Because my dad and my granddad, my legacy family is saying, you know, we've done it this way for many, many years. And we're doing just fine, right? Well, not necessarily. So we've been teaching them these principles of efficiencies, and they're studying the little minut things that can be gathered from weights, and gathering traits, and observations. Because honestly, that's what's going to help them survive as we go forward. And we're so excited to be a part of that trending that they see. Gallagher works closely with those folks and all kinds of different organizations to try to, you know, bring to light what's possible, and make things easier for folks to do the work that they've been doing for years.

Shaye Koester  12:51

Well, absolutely. And I would agree with everything you just said there. And so with that, you know, one thing that I pulled out of that last statement, or those last few words, were there's just a lot of information that can be collected and monitored. So how does a producer go about deciding what you know, information is going to matter to them so that they know what type of technologies they need to start implementing, because not every technology, or piece of equipment is going to be perfect for every operation? So what are some questions, you know, producers can ask themselves before they start making these investments in technology?

Ray Williams  13:34

When we talk to folks for the first time when they're considering equipment, it's a great conversation to have about what do you want to know, we can help them from the very simplest system, all the way to the system that records a lot of data and a lot of information. So it's really what matters to them. Their operation may have different types of needs than another operation does. I think it's once we hear what they want to do, and what's the future look like for them? I mean, you may not be doing EID tags now, but when you eventually may do them, are we putting them in the right package to expand their operation. So there's not this cellphone mentality where gosh, it's no good in a year. It's just obsolete if we want to help them grow with that and our equipment allows them to update and expand their operation with technology as it comes about. And that's really exciting to see them go through that whole process and that journey of beginning. And then, you know, we talk to folks all the time that have been in the business for years, and they go gosh, it's time to do something different and to make things more efficient. I have a customer I met again at one of the big shows and when I first met them, the husband and wife came up to me at the booth. He says, Yeah, we need to, we need to do scales. I said, are you weighing your animals down? He says, no, no, we're not doing a lot. Yeah, we're just going to get into this. And the wife is standing there. And she's like, looking at him, like, you better say everything I want you to say, or I'm gonna beat you. So it was kind of cute, because pretty soon, she says, All right, this isn't for him. This is for me. I am tired of getting things written on a piece of wood, or a piece of paper that he's conglomerated and I can't read it. It's got blood, and scat, and all kinds of stuff all over it. I want something that I can push a button, and I get it in the office, where I like to be. And there are so many groups like this that have been doing it the same way. But for one reason or another things have gotten become more intense for them to report more information, or they want more information to make things or just doing the books understanding what the bank wants, you know. So it's a combination of teaching, and asking what he needs to do and helping her or them find out what they need to do in the office or how they need to report it, how they need to put it all together so they can analyze their data later. So it's kind of fun if you see this happen all the time.

Shaye Koester  16:29

Well, awesome. Is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap up today?

Ray Williams  16:35

Well, Shaye, thank you again, for having me today. I think it's such a great opportunity in our industry right now to see things as they are, I recently came from a big show in Nashville and the National Cattlemen's Association, the place which is full of new technology. So I think that as we move forward, folks have options. So if your imagination can go wild, it seems because there's so many things that you can do to make yourself more efficient. And embracing technology, keeping it simple. And understanding what you want to know, being able to change your mind if you want and have any equipment and software and people to support that is what it's all about.

Shaye Koester  17:21

Well, awesome. Thank you very much, Ray. I appreciate everything we got to visit about today and I'm sure my audience will as well.

Ray Williams  17:28

Well, thank you for having me, Shaye!