Now more than ever QR codes are dominating day-to-day life and now cattle are joining the stampede.
Livestock identification and traceability system Allflex has been custom printing tags for use in vineyard management, mining and event name badges but now the livestock market is set to benefit from QR code too.
The Mackenzie family from Gloucester placed QR ear tags in a handful of Angus females recently before rolling out the technology further into the herd such as bulls, commercial females and even weaners bound for saleyards or feedlots.
Scanning a phone over the ear tags will provide information on everything from NLIS, pedigree and health treatments but the opportunities are endless.
An Allflex spokesperson said they had printed QR codes on ear tags before but not specifically for use in a beef production business.
"We custom print tags that are used across industries outside of the livestock market too like vineyard management, mining and event name badges," the spokesperson said.
Our customers could be using them in many different ways and we are not typically involved in the details of the exact use.
"A QR code can be a link to a website, used to communicate with software or represent some other kind of image or data that is typically related to the item it is placed on."
While there are big gains for the stud industry, the technology could have the biggest impact in the saleyards by offering buyers confidence in their purchases.
Producer Robert Mackenzie said there was the potential to place a QR code on the front of a saleyard pen and offer the buyers lifetime traceability on the mob.
"We will introduce it to all of our stud cows and introduce it to a percentage of commercial females in every mob," he said.
"There is the potential to have it in all of our commercial females, especially as a way to track and find the best cows by tracing the weight gains of those calves back to the cow.
"We want to be able to capture the performance of our weaners that go into backgrounding or feedlots to give those backgrounders and feedlots value bang for their buck.
"We are all about making it easier for the next purchaser whether it's retail ready packs or weaners and replacement heifers that we want to prove the quality is there."
Bowe and Lidbury stock and station agent Rodney McDonald said now more than ever people wanted the whole story and COVID-19 had trained people to scan QR codes.
"It's a matter of standing out from the rest," he said.
"There is so many millions of cattle on the market and you have just got to be one step in front of the others.
"It's innovative, it's what the consumers wants. I think it'll be great to think you can go to a weaner sale and have these barcodes on the gate and it's going to bring up what sire they are by, their life history and that they have had 5-in1 or 7-in-1 vaccinations.
"When we assess all their cattle on AuctionsPlus we have to give all that information to the buyer and the buyers are looking at that, whereas in the saleyards we don't do that."
Lucy Kinbacher
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
