I DON’T consider myself to be particularly savvy when it comes to the myriad of things mobile phones can be used for so it came as something of a surprise to learn that there are now phones for cows.
Two weeks ago I was sitting in a London underground train reading the Evening Standard as many thousands of office workers do as they travel home, when I spotted almost a half-page Vodafone advertisement showing a dewy-eyed cow nuzzling a young calf.
The caption attributed to George – Cattle Farmer said “I need to sleep at night, without the nightmare of losing any calves.”
The ad was for a thing called Moocall, essentially a mobile-phone connected device that allows the cow to call George the farmer when her labour contractions reach a certain level of intensity over a period of time.
Seems the idea goes back to an experience suffered by one of the Moocall founding team members, Niall Austin, of losing a heifer and her calf due to calving difficulty.
That was in 2010 and after many months of research and development with co-founders Michael Stanley and Emmet Savage, the device was born.
It is essentially a non-invasive sensor, a bit like an elongated plastic turtle shell about 10cm in length which moulds about two-thirds around and is strapped high on the tail.
When it detects the tail movement patterns triggered by labour contractions, it sends an alert via partner Vodafone’s mobile phone platform to the farmer about one hour before calving.
Moocall presumably chose to partner with Vodafone because of its connectivity and global reach capabilities in the UK and Europe.
Expansion into France, the Netherlands and the United States is claimed and a quick look on the web suggests it may now be available in Australia, in Victoria at least.
However the thing that still intrigues me is why Vodafone would choose to advertise in a paper which is handed out free in late afternoon at the entrance to tube stations.
Just how many London commuters are there with cow herds?
Beef exports still climbing
ON the back of sustained higher kill levels, beef exports in August increased to 106,921 tonnes, a rise of 1764t on the unexpectedly elevated July figure.
This latest statistic from the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources represents the second highest monthly beef tonnage out of Australia this year and four months in a row of tonnages well in excess of 100,000.
By comparison, there was not a month in 2017 when exports reached the 100,000t level and only one month in 2016 when tonnage just fell over the 100,000 mark. We have to go back to 2014 and 2015, the big years of drought turnoff, to find successive months in excess of 100,000t.
On a progressive basis for this calendar year, export tonnage now stands at 747,795, an increase of 12.5 per cent on last year.
In a country that has yet to see a significant start to herd rebuilding after the decimation years of 2014-15, this increase in production can mean only one thing, a return to herd liquidation.
I have argued in this column previously that the 46-47pc of females in the national kill in 2016-17 (ABS figures) represented a herd stand-still period with attempts by producers in storm-favoured areas to increase breeder numbers cancelled out by the downsizing going on in areas still affected by drought.
The logic comes from matching female kill percentage with known periods of intense rebuilding and similarly intense periods of liquidation.
2011-12 was the most recent example of the former and 2014-15 the latter.
In those rebuild years female kill percentage ran at 43-44 while the liquidation years saw percentages of 49-51.
This year as the kill got into full stride in February, the female proportion was still holding at 47pc but by April it had risen to 52.5pc.
In June it reached 53.7pc and latest ABS figures for July had it still cracking along at 53.6.
To me this says the flat trend line of the last two years has once again turned downwards and is taking us into a worse position in terms of herd size than was the case at the end of 2015.
This has to raise some serious concerns as to supply of slaughter cattle relative to slaughter capacity going forward.
A return to short weeks with their associated processing efficiency losses and labour issues would seem inevitable.
Hot cow market pushes processors into red territory
BACK in mid-July the cow market looked pretty hot with heavyweights in Dalby reaching 259c/kg and averaging 250c.
But a weather-driven run of cattle in August took the sting out of the job bringing the saleyard average back to around 211c which matched the grid price at that time of 415c.
Now the tide has turned again with cows hitting 268c at Dalby last week for a 256c average. That equates to a touch over 500c on a carcase weight basis.
The reason is that numbers once again are shortening up and southern operators are continuing to exert a lot of pressure on the cow job.
One southern Queensland processor I spoke to early in the week commented on the effect this is having on their margin. “We have followed it down to zero and now we are back into red territory,” he said.
With the balance of September looking tight for cattle, grid rates in southern Queensland firmed this week bringing indicator 4-tooth ox to 510 and heavy cow to 440.
While it is hoped that October might not be as bad as what is happening now, the contact expects the run of oats cattle due to start soon will be short-lived.
He also confirmed grave concerns about cattle supply going forward and while his company had not yet dropped any time, industry talk was now turning in that direction.
