Dairy heifers arrive

On Monday we had our first truck load of dairy heifers arrive.  Just a shortish trip from the outskirts of Hamilton to our place in a Te Akau Transport truck. 

Te Akau Transport truck dropping off weaners

The first 90 arrived at 1.30 pm and were put straight out into their paddock to settle.  We left them there for 2 days and Wednesday afternoon we weighed them all.  They averaged 123 kg, with the range being 97.5 - 152.5 kg.  There will be another 15 - 17 arriving in 10-14 days time once they are fully weaned off meal. 

All the weaners are tagged with EID (electronic identification) tags as per the requirement under NAIT (http://www.nait.co.nz/).  To read these tags either a hand held wand or a reader is required that is linked back to the Weigh Indicator.  We have a Gallagher wand (http://www.gallagher.co.nz/) and a TruTest ID3000 (http://www.tru-test.com/).  The first time through the yards is a bit slower as we type in the visual tag to correspond with the EID number.  In the future it will be simply to record the EID as they come through the race. 

The weaners will be weighed 8 weekly.  Once all the data is recorded, it is downloaded onto excel, where we can monitor the liveweight gain (LWG) of each animal.  This information is then sent to the owners of the weaners so they too can monitor progress.

These dairy weaners are on a weekly retainer, with a growth rate premium on top, so there is a win:win arrangement.

The Kiwi Cross Dairy Heifers straight off the truck, with Alice counting them off!