OFI 1095: Let Your Cattle & Pigs Weigh, Drench And Sort Themselves

On today's episode, we are profiling a product.  And like I do every time that we profile a product or company I want to give a disclaimer.  Today's guest is not a paid advertiser or sponsor of the Off-Farm Income Podcast, and there are no discussions taking place for that to happen.  This company was brought to my attention by a person I have met through agricultural podcasting, and after reading about their product I thought this might be something that could help you be more successful on your cattle or pig operation. That is why we are profiling it here today. Our guest today, Joe Spicola, has been involved in the beef industry, raising stockers, for many years now.  Sometime around 2005, as they were weighing cattle, again, he decided that there must be a better way to get this done than rounding up all the cattle, stressing them out, and inputting all that labor.  Then, an idea was born.  What if the cattle could be scanned and their weight calculated each time they came to water? This started the journey that Joe is still on today.  However, today he has an extremely accurate product that weighs cattle and pigs through 3-D imaging technology that he is selling.  This product is called CLICR Weight, and its implications are fantastic! Instead of rounding up cattle, penning them up, and running them through a scale to calculate their weights and average daily gains, Joe's product relies on the cattle coming to water and technology.  Joe has been able to develop an algorithm that uses a 3-D image capture by a camera when a cow or pig comes to drink that provides the animal's weight with 96% accuracy.  The implications here are astounding.  A lot of labor and stress is saved by doing this when the cow or pig is doing something that is totally natural to them.  And, the computer can automatically mark the animal if they have reached their goal weight.  The computer can also automatically apply drenches so that cattle do not have to be run through corrals to get parasite protection, and I think Joe is just starting to figure out all the ways that this technology can help producers. With a $3,500 price tag and a daily subscription fee of $.05-$.15 per animal, if this sounds like a technology that would help you to succeed in your operation it is definitely affordable.  I hope that the information provided today can help you to be more successful, and I hope that innovations in agriculture like this keep coming our way!