A new automatic livestock drafting gate that uses RFID (radio frequency identification) has been brought to market by Allflex Livestock Intelligence. It’s designed to segregate cattle according to preset and/or customisable action lists via the company’s SenseHub, Healtime Pro and Dataflow II livestock monitoring systems.
The new gate is equipped with two RFID antennae located on the side panels of the race which recognise the approaching cow’s identity based on the electronic identification (EiD) ear tag. The 6m long gate can be configured with either a left or right opening gate. A three-way version is also available.
“As the use of EiD ear tags becomes mandatory, we anticipate more dairy herd managers and beef farmers will be interested in adopting automatic drafting systems to accurately and reliably filter cows for AI, health treatment, foot trimming, PD scanning or group management purposes,” explained Paul Mitcham, monitoring sales manager for Allflex in the UK.
“Using an automatic sorting gate to segregate cows for these purposes not only saves precious time, but has also been shown to reduce operator and cattle stress. We’ve therefore introduced the latest RFID technology to our existing sorting gate solution to make it compatible on a wider range of farms.”
Unlike the existing Allflex LD (long-distance) sorting gate, which can only be operated by the cSense next collars, the new RFID gate is now compatible with standard EiD ear tags.
“More users will therefore be able to use pre-set health and fertility reports or manually created lists to take advantage of the benefits of automatic cattle drafting,” Mr Mitcham continued.
The RFID gate is operated by mains power and compressed air and should be installed on a level concrete surface with a minimal area of 6,500mm x 1,200mm x 100mm. The concrete surface should be grooved to prevent cows from slipping.
For more information go to www.allflex.co.uk