Beef production has become incredibly efficient over the years. Advancements in breeding, feeding efficiency, and medical treatments have led to efficiency gains across the entire beef production sector. Over the last 100 years, cattle inventory has seen a dramatic drop, but beef production has remained strong.
In 1975, beef cattle inventories in the US hit their peak at 57 million head. In the following years, inventories started on a steady decline. By 2010, the total inventory dropped to around 40 million head. Despite the dropping numbers of cattle, beef production was barely affected. At first, total production dropped by a few billion pounds per year, but quickly recovered and actually started to grow as the inventories declined.
Beef production per animal saw a substantial increase over this period of time, meaning production methods were starting to become more efficient. Ranchers and feedlots could now stock fewer cattle while maintaining the same (or more) output.
Many advancements in the industry have led to greater cattle growth efficiency, including faster turnover of feeder cattle, better genetics, and improved animal health. Over the last 40 or so years, these advancements have increased carcass weight by roughly 6 lbs per year — a total of 240 lbs of extra carcass weight.
In recent years, technology has opened endless opportunities for ranchers and feedlot operators to maximize efficiency. Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) is the term for these new technologies. It is essentially any smart technology that is used to closely monitor individual livestock. Rather than focusing on the herd as a whole, it drills down into each animal for better insights. PLF technologies are becoming more common in breeding, health management, and efficiency on livestock operations.
HerdWhistle falls under the PLF umbrella. It is the first of its kind to monitor every individual animal on a cattle feedlot 24/7. It tracks the eating and drinking habits of each animal to find early signs of disease and reduce mortality. It can find the more efficient animals on the feedlot who require less food to gain the same amount of weight as its peers. It can even keep tracking of stocking density and determine if cattle are underfed or overfed.
HerdWhistle is capable of producing billions of data points per month, analyzing it all, and presenting the key information to the feedlot operator so they can improve their production.
HerdWhistle and other PLF technologies are the future of feedlots. They enable feedlot operators to push the boundaries of efficiency in their herd and remain sustainable for the future.
