This Farmdeck solution enabled Llanelli Farm to improve farm management capabilities. For example, tracking and identifying livestock, managing water tank and dams levels, and surveillance of the perimeter of the property.
- Bathurst NSW
- 1,500 Sheep
- 526 Hectares
Llanelli's main challenges: livestock tracking and water management
Llanelli is a 526-hectare family farm located in Bathurst, NSW. With its 1,500 head of sheep, Llanelli primarily targets the lamb market. Ben Morgan, co-owner, recognised early on that taking the path of digital transformation was the best approach to tackle their challenges and reduce their operational costs.
Llanelli faced two main challenges in the daily management of their business; livestock tracking and water monitoring. Every single animal needed to be counted and managed manually once a month; a lengthy and tedious process prone to human error. Additionally, with eleven dams and three water tanks spread across a mountainous land, Llanelli’s staff lost a sizable amount of time travelling to each dams and tanks to verify water levels daily and action the appropriate measures.
Through a all-in-one Farmdeck solution combining network connectivity, sensors, and our app, we enabled Llanelli to track and identify livestock, manage water tanks and dams levels, and surveillance the perimeter of the property.
Increasing efficiency, staying competitive, and creating sustainability
Due to the complexity of the landscape, three different wireless technologies were deployed; one for the livestock management, one for the cameras, and one for field sensors management, utilising the farm’s connectivity and Lora. Smart surveillance cameras have been installed on the field to provide analytics on the sheep movements and give visibility to the owners on everything happening on their land.
One of the key differentiators of this solution is the distance within which we can track the livestock. To increase the tracking distance to 8m and get a more accurate sheep count, we developed the first high frequency sheep ear tags in Australia. This solution allowed Ben not to have to manually scan sheep ear tags anymore. Instead, a tag reader was installed on his paddocks’ gates, capturing all the animals going through.
Farmdeck deployed sensors in dams and tanks to address issues related to water management. With their low-power operation, extended battery life, and strong signal range in rural areas the chosen sensors were perfected for Llanelli’s IoT project. All data generated through those sensors is then aggregated on Farmdeck’s app, forming the ultimate “Smart Farm”; increasing efficiency, staying competitive, and creating sustainability.
Helping with drought preparation, tank damage, stray livestock, and budget constraints
By providing access to data and analytics for water (levels, leaks, volumes and usage) and livestock (track, count and identification), Farmdeck has enabled the Bathurst farm to more proactively address their many challenges, such as drought preparation, tank damage, stray livestock, and budget constraints. Using IoT has helped Llanelli to streamline their processes, provide valuable data, improve analytics and shorten their time to action. To make sense of all the data, the Farmdeck app has provided them with a user-friendly interface consolidating all the information collected by the sensors and cameras on the farm.
Ben Morgan, Co-owner of Llanelli Farm: “This solution has helped me and my family resolve our two main challenges on the farm: livestock tracking and harvesting water, allowing us to use our time to improve other areas of the farm. Farmdeck has been great at understanding our needs and at developing a customized solution and platform for us.”