Gringegalgona Merino stud owners use eID tags for genetics

Gringegalgona Merino stud co-principal Clive Silcock, Vasey, and his dad Stephen have learnt to use electronic identification (eID) tags to maximise on-farm productivity.

The eID are used to help identify livestock with a unique number, and store and transmit information using radio frequency identification technology.

The Silcock family started using eID tags in 2017, but Clive said he only started learning the benefits of the tags in 2020, and purchased an auto drafter and wand.

"You can get a lot more value out of them than just registering them for the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS)," he said.

They manage about 25,000 sheep at the stud's peak, and tagged about 8000 lambs this year.

"It's helped us track the performance initially in the stud, and we've been able to see that it's really beneficial and we can track and record the information in the stud," he said.

Clive said this year, their flock ewes were joined in sire syndicate groups, while the lambs were tagged in a recorded sequence.

"We can see that the sire group might have performed 30 or 40 per cent better than others, so in a commercial sense we can go 'I can't afford to run the rams that aren't performing and increasing my use of the ones that are doing more'," he said.

"It helps us to assess groups of rams where it might be worth having another look for stud sires based on performance in the flock.

"We use the wand to send classing grades and any visual scores directly to the software in real time."

He said while the breeding community worked on phasing out mulesing, they kept notes on different lamb matings and run the ewe flock through an auto drafter to find ewes that produced unsuitable animals.

"The beauty of this is that we can make this decision at any point without having to reclass and review the ewes themselves as the information has already been captured and stored in the software," he said.

Stephen said one of the problems in the sheep and wool industry was finding people that were able to process the available information.

NLIS requirements changed in 2017 for eID tags to be mandatory on any lambs or kids born before they leave the property of birth.

He said he felt positive about the industry change at the time and excited at the possibility of the technology.

"On top of all the costs that you incur before you've got the lamb to its first birthday, we were spending all this money so what's a bit more?," he said.

"The cost-benefit of pulling back and appreciating what we could do with eID tags.

"I put some in sheep maybe 15 years ago but never got to actually do anything with it, had the technology but not the expertise to do anything with it."

Clive said he managed the flock's data in an excel spreadsheet and looked forward to seeing how the stud would improve over time.

"The key thing is, is that people can focus on being good at managing and get good results, or focus on genetics and get good results, but at some point you have to be able to do both," he said.

"There's a lot of value in the business that's going unrecognised by not capturing raw figures that can give them informed decisions."