5 Advantages to using animal scales for your livestock business

Regularly weighing livestock has become an integral part of modern animal farming. It provides farmers with useful data for a number of key management decisions. Here are five advantages you enjoy when you use a high-quality animal scale on your farm.

1. Close monitoring of your animals health

When an animal falls sick, it can be a long time before you notice any outward changes in its appearance or behaviour. Weighing an animal is one of the most effective methods for verifying its health. As soon as you notice a drop in an animal’s wait, you should have it looked at by a veterinarian. In the case of illness or disease, early treatment can cure the animal and help eliminate the risk of the illness spreading.

2. Smart breeding decisions

There are optimal weights for animals to breed at. By regularly weighing your animals, you’ll be able to have a more precise indication of when the right time to breed is.

3. Optimal feeding portions

Monitoring weight gain allows you to calculate feed conversation rates, which lets you know if you should increase or reduce feed. This information can also be used to determine when a change of diet would be beneficial.

4. Improved breeding strategy

Weighing livestock on a regular basis gives you a precise idea of which breeds gain weight the fastest. This allows you to make the most well-informed decisions when it comes to genetic selection (for instance, underperforming animals can be pulled out and the strongest performing animals can be cross-bred).

5. Optimal weaning time for calves

Regularly weighing calves allows you to identify the best moment to wean them. Weaning calves at the right time is important to ensuring that they are properly integrated into the herd. Moreover, this weight information can help you predict future growth of your calf.

By using an livestock scale, you’re sure to improve productivity on your farm. Just be sure that it’s a high-quality scale. If your weighing equipment doesn’t provide accurate information, it can do more harm than good. If you’re looking to obtain an animal scale in the Calgary area, Accurate/Western Scale can provide you with the very best. We offer a wide range of state-of-the-art multi and single animal scales.

When it comes to scale equipment, there’s no better source than Accurate/Western Scale. We supply and install a wide range of scale equipment, including hopper, tank, truck, rail, axle and livestock scales. We’re based in Calgary, Alberta, and our service area extends across Western Canada. For more information, give us a call.