When Is A Scale Not A Scale? When It’s An Ernie™ 700
Scott Reynolds, a DVM at the Broken Bow Animal Hospital in Broken Bow, Nebraska, handles most of the cattle within a 70-mile radius of this central Nebraska farm community. It’s a big job helping care for 15,000 to 20,000 animals per year.
Along with the usual care supplied by DVM’s, he helps his clients collect data - everything from sex, age, and pregnancy, whatever is deemed important by the rancher – and it varies by the season.
Spring and fall are our busy seasons,” he said, “and the information a rancher needs to run his business changes with the season.”
“We started trying to collect the data from ear tags with wireless readers then tried those small handhelds. We had lots of problems. Battery life was terrible, some of the equipment wasn’t sturdy enough, and data entry on those little handhelds while wearing gloves was just about impossible.
Screen view and service were also problems with the equipment. Breakdowns during the very busy calving season were unacceptable.
Last year, he tested the Gallagher ernie™ 700. “I’d known about the company for 4 or 5 years and saw their equipment in the area,” he said.
Although its primary function is as a scale, Reynolds liked the fact that it was designed to capture other data. “We could quickly reprogram it to record any kind of data our clients wanted,” said Reynolds. “It’s a very flexible piece of equipment and reprogramming it is simple.”
The scale is moved constantly from farm to farm and subjected to some times harsh treatment. Although it’s rugged enough to withstand a lot of abuse, Reynolds was concerned at first about service if he experienced a problem.
I had some service problems with equipment from other companies, especially when I would get caught in one of those automated answering systems,” he said, “but what I liked about Gallagher was I could call them and talk to a real person right away. I’ve been impressed with their service and responsiveness.”
We use ernie™ like a very durable lap top and it works. With EID continuing to grow, it will become more important to us.”
Just a few of the ways an ernie can help you.
During A.I. season, an ernie can keep track of all your breeding details. When A.I. is complete, the information can be downloaded from your ernie to your computer to create one spreadsheet with all your A.I. Records
Calving Book
Make calving easier by using an ernie to set up the fields of information you want to collect. Simply enter the data and download your calving records into your computer. Saves you hours of hand entering your records.
Preg Checking
An ernie can also help with preg checking. Set up the fields you want to collect and enter the data. After downloading to your computer, you have one easy to read spreadsheet with detailed information on each animal being monitored.
Hay
Use an ernie to help track your hay crop cutting and quality by entering the data into customizable fields. You can then use that information to better track where the different cuttings and quality of feed are being used.
Crop Monitoring
An ernie can be used as a monitoring device for any field crop — corn, beans, peanuts, cotton, any crop — simply build the template for the information you want to collect and monitor.
Garden/Farmers Market
An ernie works great to collect and maintain planting, production and sales information on your personal garden or your Farmers Market garden.
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