World-Leading Gallagher Product Revolutionises Sheep Drafting Process

WINNER of the 'BEST SHEEP AND WOOL INNOVATION AWARDS' and 'BEST NEW TECHNOLOGY AWARDS' in the heart of sheep country at Sheepvention in Hamilton Victoria.

Rob Taylor Testimonial
Farm Name: Plasnewyd
Stock units: 2500 lambs, 400 cattle
Size of farm: 230 hectares

“Since using the Gallagher Sheep Auto Drafter I’ve been able to cut the labour used to weigh and draft sheep in half. When I used my old drafter it took two of us to put the sheep through. Now I can draft by myself and my worker is free to do other jobs around the farm”.
“Last week I put 1500 sheep through my Sheep Auto Drafter and only had to intervene 6 times to correct sheep flow into the unit. That’s only one manual intervention every 250 sheep.”
“At the moment I am able to run through 400 sheep an hour. With some slight adjustments to my Sheep Auto Drafter setup I’m confident I can get that number up to 600 an hour.”
 

Launched at the National Fieldays and developed with a little help from robotic sheep, Gallagher’s latest product innovation is set to revolutionise the process of weighing and drafting sheep.

At Mystery Creek on June 16th Gallagher unveiled the new Sheep Auto Drafter – a fully automated weighing and drafting system that is smoother, quieter and easier to set up and operate than any other sheep drafting product on the market.

Richard Mullen, National Sales Manager for Gallagher Animal Management Systems, says the Sheep Auto Drafter was developed to streamline the sheep drafting process and make it easier on both drafter and sheep.

“Farmers spend many hours drafting in a paddock or stockyard and a lot of them must wonder if there is a better way of doing the job. So our aim was to develop an automatic weighing and drafting system that makes sheep drafting less laborious and much more efficient.”

The result is a product that utilises composite materials and innovative rotation moulding technology to redefine the way in which animal handling equipment is constructed.

“If you look at an old metal crate and the Gallagher Sheep Auto Drafter side by side its like looking at a model T Ford versus a modern motor car.”

Lightweight and portable, the Sheep Auto Drafter is a hands-free integrated and automatic unit that makes drafting large numbers of sheep quicker, quieter, safer, more accurate and, most importantly, enjoyable.

The unit was developed with help from a world-leading animal behaviourist and ‘Robosheep’ were used to test the structural integrity of the composite materials. This process involved using a mechanical sheep to smash into the end of the autodrafter – simulating the activity of a real sheep crashing into the gates from 2 metres away. Even after 5000 continuous smashes the Robosheep caused no damage whatsoever.

Because it is much lighter than a traditional steel-built drafter, the Gallagher Sheep Auto Drafter can be quickly loaded onto the back of a ute or farm trailer and is ready to go once the air and power supply is plugged into the integrated controls.

Easily operated by one-person, it offers the ability to draft automatically up to a maximum of nine ways. The front and rear doors to the drafter are controlled by the built-in front and rear load cells which sense the presence of an animal and open and close accordingly without the intervention of an operator. The short distance between split-gates means smooth sheep flow and rapid capture and release at entry and exit.

Electronic animal-sensing reduces the risk of jam-ups at the gates, and the sides of the unit are adjustable to suit sheep sizes ranging from young lambs to heavyweight rams.

It’s smooth operation combined with automated entry and exit gates means this drafter will draft in excess of 500 animals per hour.

Another advantage of the composite material is that it eliminates the problem of electrical interference for farmers using EID tags and tag readers.

Richard Mullen says the inspiration for the Sheep Auto Drafter’s robust construction came from Gallagher’s partnership with the innovative plastics engineer who helped develop the award-winning Gallagher electronic tag panel reader.

This unique approach means that not only is the new Gallagher Sheep Auto Drafter completely robust and ready to handle even the toughest farm environment, it’s also very quiet. This keeps stock calmer and the whole operation running more smoothly.

The unit’s construction and design makes it very easy to clean, and the lack of steel componentry eliminates the risk of corrosion caused by weather and animal fluids.

To enable the farmer to customise the system to their own specific requirements, the Sheep Auto Drafter comes with a choice of modular options, including antenna side panels, additional drafter units, to allow up to nine way drafting, a lead-in ramp and plug-in reader controller. In due course the unit will also have a trailer as an optional extra for further portability.

The Gallagher Sheep Auto Drafter is released hot on the heels of another revolutionary product – the SmartFence T4100, a four-wire fully-portable all-in-one electric fence system.

Richard Mullen says these new products again reinforce Gallagher’s reputation as a world leader in agricultural innovation.

For more information visit www.gallagher.com.au or phone 03-9308-7722.