Connacht Agri Wighing Scales

locky76

Anyone out there have one of these, a neighbour and i are looking to buy one, i think they're €1,150.
i like the idea of being able to weigh cattle on a regular basis.
i have a suckler to beef enterprise (although i sell stores mid stream when i run short:)) and would like to have a better idea of animal weights.

jeff greene

I don’t have one but an idea I heard of recently that may or may not suit you, is to attach a cattle crush to a diet feeder and use it to weigh your animals, I’m sure how practical it is thought.

Nutcase

locky76 wrote: »

Anyone out there have one of these, a neighbour and i are looking to buy one, i think they're €1,150.
i like the idea of being able to weigh cattle on a regular basis.
i have a suckler to beef enterprise (although i sell stores mid stream when i run short:)) and would like to have a better idea of animal weights.

Yes we have one.. havent tried 2 weigh any of the suck calves on it yet (maybe this year) but all the older animals over a year old have been weighed at least once.. I worked it out once it was takin us 3 mins an animal to take them out of shed weigh them and put them back up that was on a good day tho:)
If ur gettin one make sure it fits into ur chute exactly otherwise the animals will be puttin ther feet down either side of the platform and it will take forever 2 get them 2 stand on it properly!
It can also be hard sometimes 2 get them 2 stand still on it 2 get an accutate reading i think its 3 seconds they have 2 be still for. This may not seem like a long time but when it comes 2 it you will be suprised!!

barryoc1

I think it is a great idea to be able to weigh the cattle regularly and keep an eye on the weight gain, especially over the winter so you can decide whether you need to increase the amount of concentrates being fed with silage. At €1150 it is a bit costly though. Especially for the size of my farm. Anyone know of companies that do these cheaper? Ideally it needs to be load bars and a platform cause i have cattle in different locations so need to throw it in the boot.

dar31

any one any experiance with the weigh scales boxs that can be connected to your computer, and store the tag no's on the scales box.
looking at two at the moment, and they are about €450 dearer than the standard ones.
going to weigh all the youngstock about 4 - 5 times a year.

deeraff

Dad bought a set of scales at the ploughing last september.. we seen them as quite a novelty at the start weighing everythin about the place, but found they were very handy for weighing cattle coming up to finishing. seeing how much/ week they were actually putting on and if they werent doing anything send them on. a gud buy i would say! however we had a small problem the transformer on the plug failed and we had to send them back a month ago but this was rectified and they were send back by courier!

barryoc1

deeraff wrote: »

Dad bought a set of scales at the ploughing last september.. we seen them as quite a novelty at the start weighing everythin about the place, but found they were very handy for weighing cattle coming up to finishing. seeing how much/ week they were actually putting on and if they werent doing anything send them on. a gud buy i would say! however we had a small problem the transformer on the plug failed and we had to send them back a month ago but this was rectified and they were send back by courier!

From who did you but it Deeraff and do you know how much it cost? Is it the load bars under a steel platform type? You find it good? Seen a few complainin that the cattle dont stand still long enough with this type and makes it difficult to use.

TUBBY

How ye lads. I got one there a while back. It must be the one you are talking about cause it was 1150.

it has the four load bars. one thing though, yuo dont need the three seconds for settling. there is a scale on it from 1 to 5. It is default setting of three but i set it back to 2 and the number then freezes after 2 seconds. I find it very good and accurate also. I weighed the same lad three times from a bay next the crush on three consecutive days and got within 2kg.
Thats fairly good in my book. Its a great buy and dont forget you can claim the vat back too if you fix the platform.
I think that the day for guessing weights is well gone. We need to be more scientific and if cattle are not gaining weight, dose them or look at the feed they are getting (or just get rid of them). The scales helps ya realise which cattle are doing well for ya and takes away the guess work.
Also, I sell bulls off the land and the scales means you know exactly what you are getting before they are weighed in the local mart.
Buy it. It works out less than 1K with VAT back:)