Tech-Driven Efficiency for Shropshire Sheep Farm

Farming near Bridgnorth, shepherd Hayden Woolley has increased the efficiency and greatly reduced the labour hours and maintenance of his 4,000 ewes through better monitoring and data-led decision-making. The sheep graze over some 1,700 acres of parkland in the summer months across six different locations. During the winter, the flock is split across grazing on 15 arable farms.

Performance recording

Growing his sheep farming business over the past 25 years, Hayden’s biggest breakthroughs came after adopting the iLivestock platform to better understand what was working, and how he could improve.

Adopting the phone-based software back in 2020, Hayden started by using the data captured to monitor and measure the productivity of different breeds within his large flock. Already using an EID reader and weigh crate, iLivestock easily connected to both through the eWeigh weigh head, collating all the different elements of data into one place on his iPad and phone.

Hayden says, “Initially I was only collecting basic production data but was surprised how the information built up. Even though I was only recording the basics, such as scanning results, breed, age and weights.”

Recording the basics and building up the information

Exploring his growing database of stats, Hayden found that he could potentially create a more efficient farming system by swapping to a wool-shedding breed.

Gradually building up a highly comprehensive profile of individual animals, Hayden commented, “Each ewe is allocated a visual management tag corresponding to her EID, single sire mated, with lambs tagged as they’re born outdoors in April.

“We collect ewe weights at tupping and weaning, while tagged lambs with known parentage are weighed at eight weeks and weaning. This allows us to make comparisons under commercial farming conditions.”

“… time and management savings just too big to ignore.”

This detailed knowledge led Hayden to substantially reduce his labour costs, whist maintain productivity, as he explains, “My original EasyCare ewes averaged 62kg, which almost matched the output figures of my original New Zealand Romneys. When you consider the time and management savings of the EasyCares, this was just too big to ignore.”

Adding, “It’s been easy to gather the data as we complete routine tasks, and I’m getting a true picture of the risks and benefits these different breeds offer. I’m also starting to identify maternal and terminal traits needed for my flock, and shedding sheep in general.”

Hayden is also finding important differences in his imported New Zealand Wiltshire and Texel breeds, “The Wiltshire offers maternal characteristics and is very similar to the Romney, but without the wool and work requirements, whereas the Texel adds terminal traits shedding sheep lack.”

With iLivestock, “Licences only take moments to complete.”

Given the complex movement of so many sheep across Hayden’s summer and winter grazing, the iLivestock app also reduces the time spent on movement orders and admin, Hayden again, “All the information I need to complete movement licences is pre-populated in the movements section of the app, so licences only take moments to complete.”

Finally, adding, “My holdings, markets, vehicles, medicine stocks and customer locations are also saved in the app, making it easy to treat and move batches or individual animals.”

With less time spent on lost or inaccurate paperwork, there’s more time for the real job on the farm among his flock, and Hayden is keen to reap the rewards.

In 2020, Hayden adopted iLivestock Software to capture data and monitor breed productivity across his large flock

Original article featured in Shropshire Star Magazine | 'Managing data helping to streamline business' | November 2024