The Sheep Industry Business Innovation project’s new on-farm technology activity included a number of case studies on sheep producers who had successfully incorporated technology, particularly labor-saving gadgets, into their sheep business. Producers who were actually saving money on labor and had either increased or maintained the size of their flock of sheep were the ones who were targeted.
A major obstacle to growing the West Aᴜsᴛʀᴀʟɪᴀn sheep flock has been identified as agricultural labor. Despite the availability of several labor-saving devices and technological systems, information is still needed regarding how to integrate these into a sheep enterprise and which items are most suited for particular sheep enterprises. You can access specific case studies on the right.
Prior to investing in any new technologies, an appropriate pay-back period should be set after weighing the advantages of each technology. However, it’s also crucial to take into account additional advantages that are hard to quantify, such as “peace of mind” and “decrease in error.”
The video below outlines five essential technologies that sheep farmers may implement into their flocks to improve production and efficiency while increasing the number of sheep runs per worker.
In order to tackle uncertainties and produce in an agroecological fashion, producers may find it promising to combine sheep and cattle on the same farm. Previous research demonstrated the advantages of mixed-species grazing on ɢʀᴀssland use and animal health. Few studies, however, have looked at how and why farmers really manage the two species on their farms. This study surveyed 37 farmers who raised ᴍᴇᴀᴛ sheep, beef, or dairy cattle on their farms in order to better understand this issue.
We decided to take a systematic and comprehensive approach to how mixed-species livestock farming systems (MSLF) operate by taking into account all system components that are impacted by mixing species as well as the perspectives of the farmers. Farmers noted the advantages of species mixing for economic stability and the best utilization of ɢʀᴀssland resources.
Although farmers frequently cited a burdensome workload as a drawback, the truth is less certain, because blending species also facilitates work. Farmer respondents mentioned the enjoyment of the varied jobs and organizational freedom. We discovered four distinct patterns of combining cattle and sheep on pasture, each of which reflects a different level of interaction between the two species and is determined by the field layout and cow productivity. The allocation of the labor necessary for each species among workers and over the course of the year is one way to mix the two species in terms of work organization.
There are three main ways that each species’ work is temporally organized, and these modes are related to various ways that animal production cycles are organized, labor availability, and resource usage intentions. Farmers exploited mechanisms connected to the coexistence of the two species, such as altering the ewe/cow ratio, breeding cycles, worker versatility, grazing management, and resource allocation between species, to adjust their farms to climatic, economic, and workforce-related challenges.
Thank you for visiting our website! We hope you found soᴍᴇᴛʜing that sparked interest on our website.
Video resource: Machinery Magazine
