Working in unison, creating a closed feedback loop

Words: Gallagher Animal Management
Where eShepherd controls where cattle graze, the StrongBó Auto Weigher measures how they respond.

One system manages the inputs. The other tracks the outcomes.

Weight trends surface within days - not after your next muster. If a mob’s growth rate slips, you can identify the cause and act immediately: adjust the rotation, shift the boundary, change the approach.

No yarding. No stress. No lag. It’s the difference between managing by instinct and managing by data - continuously, automatically, and without adding labour.

And the data compounds. Over time, you build a clear record of which rotations consistently hit target growth rates, which paddocks underperform in dry conditions, and which mobs respond best to intensive cell grazing. Every season, your decisions get sharper.

When Wairarapa beef farmer Dion Kilmister and his wife Ali had to spend six months in Australia for medical treatment, it could have derailed their intensive beef finishing operation. Instead, it became proof of concept.

Using eShepherd and the Auto Weigher, Dion Kilmister managed his entire grazing system remotely, shifting virtual fences and making feed decisions daily, based on live weight data, all from the Gold Coast. The numbers tell the story.

Before the two systems, Kilmister estimates his operation was growing around 14 tonnes of feed but only utilising78 per cent of it.

At one point, cattle dropped from 1.5 kg per day to 0.2 kg per day when a crop ran out. Monthly manual weighing didn’t catch it in time, and a whole month of live weight gain was lost.

The Auto Weigher now flags those changes in near real-time, so he can act immediately. There’s a practical elegance to how the systems work together too.

When animals hit target weight on the Auto Weigher, Kilmister simply turns off their neckbands in eShepherd and they walk out of the virtual fence on their own. No mustering 150–200 head through the yards. Just the animals that are ready, moving forward, while the rest stay put.

“The combination of eShepherd andAutoWeigher for us is about closing that gap. We’re pretty much remote farming, but getting all the information on a day-today basis that’s required to be a good farmer.”