Calf weighing, sorting and handling equipment

The purpose of this page is to inform you about different ways to weigh, sort and handle (cow) calves and the needed equipment.

Key points:

•  The importance of a Race for Weighing, Handling and Sorting Cow Calves
•  Different Ways of Weighing Calves
•  Calf Handling Made Easy
•  Sorting Conditions for Calves based on Weight

Before we jump into weighing, sorting and handling we want to elaborate on the importance of a good race setup.

In general calves like a familiar area which isn’t too noisy. To get your flock moving it is important to have a race setup through which they can follow each other. Preferably the race is completely plated so that the animals cannot be distracted from other moving objects or people in the area.

How to do this?

We recommend to setup a crowding tub on a fixed place with at least one pen to hold the calves. The crowding tub has curved panels which makes the animals move naturally. This crowding tub has been extensively researched and tested and has proven to work!

The bigger the flock, the more space you need to keep your flock in a ‘waiting room’. Our handling equipment is like LEGO and you can expand the pens easily with some extra hurdles and pins. Simple like that!

You’ll find multiple weighing equipment and the most common is the Calf Sling with a simple Hanging Scale. But what if you have to weigh 50+ calves? A lot of power, energy and manual labour will be needed from your side.

Of course, we’re going to show you a more easy way to weigh your cow calves.

In the image below you see our setup of a crowding tub with an Ovibus. The Ovibus is a conveyor with loadbars that are connected with the weigh scale. The calves are transported in the conveyor and you can hold them on a position. The loadbars and weighing scale will do their magic at this point. You can see their weight on the screen, but that’s not all! The computer registers all ear tags and data in the computer which you can export to Excel or your animal management program.

Interested? Or do you want to have more information about our Ovibus and how it might work for you?

The Ovibus has an integrated antenna panel that registers all ear tags and saves the data with the corresponding ear tag. It is even possible to connect a weighing scale with a dosing gun. Based on the weight your animals can get the correct dose EVERY-TIME. You can even manually add data to the corresponding ear tag. The sky is the limit!

Antibiotic use in the veal calf sector will increase by 5.6 percent in 2022. Reducing antibiotic use is receiving full attention in the sector. But how to tackle this? By connecting a dosing gun to a weighing computer. Your animals will get the correct dose EVERY-TIME!

More information? Reach out to us!

There are different weighing scales available. For example, the Hanging Scale is suitable for a Hanging Sling or a Weigher.

There are also more advanced weighing scales available, like Gallagher, Tru-Test or Te Pari weighing scales. You can use these weighing scales with our Ovibus. If you like, you can go nuts with the data and animal management.

We are specialized in (automatic) weighing solutions and are here to help. Feel free to reach out to us!

You might have already noticed it, but as you can see the calves are really relaxed in the Ovibus. This is because they are hold tight which makes them feel safe. Before we jump into to this we would like to share the key points to calm calves down.

•  Working with them in a quiet, confident way
•  Familiarity and familiar people
•  Gentle, low sounds
• Rhytmical sounds
• Talking quietly to the animals
• Stroking
• Silence

Our Ovibus meets a lot of the above key points because the Ovibus doesn’t make much noise. And because the calves are hold tight they feel safe. Furthermore, you can easily handle your animals. You could do the following handling operations in the Ovibus:

•  Ear tagging
• Drenching
• Pour-on
• Weighing
• Injecting
• Vaccinating
• Dosing
• Inspections

Yes, all of the above is possible with the Ovibus! Do you want more information how this could work for you? Reach out to us!

Once you know the weight of the calves you can easily sort the calves based on their weight. For example, behind the Ovibus you can set up a nice sorting gate to manually direct the calves to the right pen.

We can go even a step further by sorting the calves automatically based on their weight. You can setup conditions in your weighing computer. For instance, you want to sort calves below 25 kg to the right, between 25 and 40 kg straight and above 40 kg to the left.

To give you an idea, how this looks in a XR5000:

WEIGHT < 25 kg = RIGHT
WEIGHT > 25 AND WEIGHT < 40 KG = STRAIGH
TWEIGHT > 40 = LEFT

Simple like that!

We hope that we have given you a good idea of all the possibilities with weighing, handling and sorting calves. How and why to do it and the importance of the three! Do you want more information or do you want to receive a quote for an Ovibus? Feel free to reach out to us and we are more than happy to help and advise you.