A lightweight, high strength cattle platform designed to fit standard 5,500 lbs Gallagher loadbars.

Gallagher Weigh Scales and Data Recorders range from an entry level automatic weighing model through to the most advanced weighing and data collection systems available.

Central Taranaki contract milker Buddy Sharpe is transforming his herd management and young stock grazing by regularly weighing his animals and leveraging data to make informed decisions. 

Buddy, his wife Claudia and their two children Hudson (3) and Miles (1.5) started contract milking on a 170-hectare farm milking 480 cows, in June. They also manage a nearby 70-hectare lease block where they graze heifers for clients. 

When they arrived at the new dairy farm in June 2024, record-keeping hadn’t been a strong focus. Buddy was keen to bring everything up to best practice standards, so he turned to technology to simplify his job. 

He uses Gallagher Animal Management’s HR4 Handheld EID tag reader, TW-3 Weigh Scale and Data Collector, and 1,500kg load bars.

This technology has been crucial in managing the new herd and demonstrating the value they provide to their grazing clients. 

“When growing a new heifer for your herd can cost up to $2,000, you want to get your animal management right from the start. Regular weighing is helping us manage our young stock more efficiently and demonstrate value we’re delivering to our grazing clients,” says Buddy. 

“When we arrived on the new farm, we ran every cow in the herd through the yards and used the handheld reader to get an accurate record of every cow that was on the farm so we could start building our data for the herd.” 

The couple keeps their grazing business separate from their dairy operation. They use the weighing system to monitor and manage grazing heifers, which Buddy says is critical to growing productive and efficient future milkers. 

They weigh all heifers at the owner's farm before they arrive for grazing, then weigh them every six weeks and provide the data to their clients through MINDA. 

“For our grazing heifers, I ask the owners to add me to MINDA and I can do their weighing for them. It only takes me a few minutes to jump on my computer, and it’s all there for them,” says Buddy. 

“It’s great because they have a clear record of exactly what’s happening with their young stock and know they’re getting good value from working with us.” 

He says good management of replacement heifers is critical to driving efficiency on farms and ensuring every heifer entering the herd is set up to succeed. 

“It’s so important to get them growing well early. Regular weighing means we can pull out of the mob any heifers that aren’t performing as expected and give them special treatment,” says Buddy. 

The Gallagher system is easy to transport between the two properties and across all classes of animals, from their milking herd to young stock and calves. Buddy believes it will come into its own this calving season. 

“We can take it from property to property. It's mainly been at the lease block, but soon it'll be weighing all the calves that are on the dairy farm to make sure we're weaning them at target weights," he says. 

Buddy says regular weighing of their calves means they don’t risk weaning them too early or too late which can be costly in the long term. It also helps identify any calves that might be falling behind target weight ranges.  

Buddy says the Gallagher system not only tracks his stock’s performance but also facilitates seamless communication with his customers. 

"If I scan a heifer or a calf, all the information is sitting there in my animal performance app. I can find it in a few minutes and share it with our clients,” he says. 

Keeping on top of his herd and graziers’ data is also helping the couple move towards their goal of 50/50 share milking. 

"We’d like to get this herd to 500 kgMS per cow, so we are fully feeding the herd to help us get to that level. Our short-term goal is to be 50/50 sharemilking next season or the season after," says Buddy. 

“Managing our young stock and our grazing business well using hard data is helping us work towards that goal to ensure we have the most efficient system possible.”

Cables on farm have been a headache for farmers and ranchers for years, but cables can now be a thing of the past when weighing your livestock with the new Wireless Load Bars from Gallagher Animal Management.

Using Bluetooth technology, you can now weigh your livestock with our Wireless Load Bars and Animal Performance App on your mobile device, alternatively connect directly into a TW/TWR Weigh Scale for more advanced animal performance monitoring.

General Manager at Gallagher Animal Management North America, Sean O'Hare, said "With multiple sizes for all weighing set ups, our Wireless Load Bars offer a solution for all livestock farmers."

The load bars have been designed to withstand the harshest farming environments and the wireless connectivity removes the risk of rodents chewing cables and stock standing and damaging them.

Jennifer Tiede, Director of Product, "This solution is long-lasting; it comes with a reliable lithium battery with up to 10 years of battery life*. Plus the loadcells contain no moving parts, ensuring no wear for years of accurate weighing.”

"We are an early developer of this technology, and are excited about the benefits it will deliver to farmers," says O'Hare. "We know wireless and digital are the future of farming as our primary industries rely more and more on data to make timely and more informed decisions. Gallagher is the next generation of animal management."

To make the best animal management decisions for your farming operation, weighing your livestock has always been a powerful tool that should be utilised to keep track of animal performance.

No matter how you weigh your animals, it’s widely agreed across the board that it’s a crucial measure to get insight into animal performance, growth, and health. It's also a key tool for farmers to track progress.

We've come a long way with techniques to measure livestock. Even with all the technology available, farmers around the globe are still using a variety of methods to weigh and assess their animals.

Some of these methods include estimation by eye, weigh bands, measuring tape, and clock scales. Each come with their own challenges, like recording information on scrap paper, manually entering data, and losing print records.

Just like people, all animals are different, and have different shapes, sizes and builds. Monitoring animal growth by eye, for example, is not a great way to estimate an animal's weight for sale or to separate stock into different groups based on their growth. Everyone's eye is different and it’s difficult to get a consistent measure, which is where weighing comes in. It's consistent and accurate, you can’t argue it.

As time passes producers need to find ways to be more productive and efficient. They need better tools to manage their livestock. With the development of new technology, weigh systems have become an essential tool for animal management. Early weigh systems could only provide you with a weight on an analogue display, which has difficulties with accuracy. This progressed to early digital systems and now we are looking at the systems that collect more and more data and information about an individual animal. All this information helps you make better-informed decisions around feed, treatment and selling.

Our Farm Technologies Product Manager, Brian Rose, says throughout the industry it’s well understood that weight is a good measure of how well an animal is doing. “You can’t manage what you don’t measure. If you’re weighing livestock regularly, and they aren’t hitting the targets, it’s a good flag to investigate and see if the animal is healthy. If you’re doing that by eye, it’s going to be very difficult to be objective and consistent.”

Weigh Scales are considered an essential tool for farmers. Recording and weighing your livestock can help figure out the right time to sell stock, let you know if your stock are healthy, aid purchase and sale decisions, determine the optimum time to wean stock, and help determine when and how to separate livestock, to name a few.

While many farmers may still manually estimate animal growth rates, there’s no denying that moving to a digital system will save you time, be more accurate and enable you to make better more informed decisions.

Combining a weigh scale with an electronic identification (EID) reader offers even more value to famers and allows you to measure animals much easier at an individual level. The EID is a unique identifier which can be read by an EID reader removing the need for the farmer to manually read a tag number/brand. This can be used on the weigh scale to record and track an individual animal’s performance over its lifetime by linking weight and data records to the animals EID number.

Brian says an integrated weighing and EID system is the best option for farmers looking to manage their business. “This advanced system works together to automate animal management and handling tasks, saving you time and money.”

EID is also the most efficient way to identify and trace individual animals. As traceability schemes are implemented worldwide to manage food safety and biosecurity risks, EID systems are becoming increasingly important. It is also a quick and easy way to collect and access animal data anywhere.

Our Touch Screen Weigh Scale Range has touch screen technology, meaning access is easier than ever, and with WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities make it easy to connect with EID readers and sync your data with our Animal Performance web and mobile app. The Animal Performance app enables users to take control of their data, track individual animal performance and make better decisions.

A high performing stainless steel weighing solution that offers a corner to corner accurate reading for superior weighing, suitable for the heaviest of livestock in large cattle crushes 

Four weigh feet come completed with junction box for converting the four weighing cables into your weigh scale as well as a spare load cell. The stainless steel load cell is designed for quick and easy load cell replacement, allowing you to replace and continue your weighing session in the event of a load cell failure. 

Monitor livestock weights to gain insights into how your stock are performing. With simple installation, easy to use design and Bluetooth connectivity to the Gallagher Animal Performance mobile app the W-0 Weigh Scale is the ideal solution for farmers wanting to start monitoring their livestock weights.  

Record livestock weights from your W-0 Weigh Scale straight to your Animal Performance mobile app in real time. You can also add a Gallagher Handheld EID reader to scan animal ID numbers straight to the app, linking them to animal weights to track an individual animal’s performance over its lifetime.