Check out this excerpt from the June 2019 newsletter. Want to subscribe for monthly updates? Go here.
Oklahoma partners with CattleTrace
We are excited to announce a partnership between CattleTrace, Inc., the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, and Oklahoma beef industry stakeholders to evaluate the functionalities and capabilities of the CattleTrace program within the Panhandle state. UHF readers will be installed in two livestock markets in Oklahoma, and approximately 20,000 tags will be distributed to producers who choose to participate. More details to come, but if you’re interested in learning more about how to get involved within Oklahoma, please contact CattleTrace at 785-564-7446 or info@cattletrace.org.
CattleTrace Read Rates
CattleTrace started collecting data nine months ago, and as part of this data collection, we have been tracking read rates throughout the system. In an effort to be transparent and track progress of the pilot, we wanted to share our results thus far. Please note this is “real time” data and is based off numbers reported from our partner producers when they sell cattle at livestock markets or when cattle arrive at feedyards. In some instances, the power was off when cattle went through so the read rate was 0%, and in others, the tag malfunctioned or the reader simply did not read the tag.
Cattle recently started showing up at packers, which is providing us with the opportunity to fine tune the exact location and settings of the readers in the plants. We admit there have been challenges along the way, which we recognize is part of the pilot project process. In the past few weeks, we have made great progress in moving the read rates to the 90s percentage range and will be highlighting our experiences and key learnings at the packer locations in a future newsletter.
By monitoring read rates and checking in with partners, our goal is fine tune the CattleTrace infrastructure using UHF technology. We are making progress and are constantly seeking areas to improve. If you have any questions regarding our findings, please contact us at info@cattletrace.org.
CattleTrace seeks additional producer participants
CattleTrace is approaching the goal of distributing 55,000 tags (in Kansas) and is seeking additional partners at the backgrounder and cow-calf levels throughout this next year. Again, we are targeting producers who conduct business at a partner livestock market or feedyard to ensure we capture multiple reads, or sightings, of those animals. This data set is important as we test the system to evaluate its capabilities and the potential areas of improvement.
Dates and locations for the next round of producer meetings will be released soon, with most of them occurring late summer. We will be sharing a project update, in addition to recruiting participants. If you have interest in participating this year, whether for the second time or the first time, please contact us at 785-564-7446 or info@cattletrace.org.
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