The development and evaluation of a radio frequency identification based cattle handling system.

Abstract

Manual cattle handling systems are widely used in South Africa. A literature review

and consultations were conducted with both producers and equipment manufactures, to

assess the advantages and disadvantages of various cattle handling systems with the

objective of developing a more efficient system that incorporates automation,

electronics and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. In this study an

automated, selective sorting (RFID) based cattle handling system was developed and

assessed as an alternative to the widely adopted conventional manual management

system practiced in South Africa. The system is still under research and not yet

available on the market.

This document describes the research and development process undertaken which

included planning, literature review, consultation, design, fabrication, evaluation and

discussions. The RFID based system developed consists of manual, semi- and fully

automated components in the form of a neck-body clamp with through access, flow

control double split gates and a weigh-identification-sort system. For the ease of

comparison the system was developed with a manual by-pass as a control to compare

the automated and manual systems in terms of establishment cost, handling duration

including identification, weighing and sorting, and operator and animal stress levels

which impact on business profitability and system efficiency. Both the manual by-pass

and automated RFID-based systems were evaluated.

The automated system resulted in reduced handling duration, operational costs and

handling stress on both operator and the animal whilst enabling selective automated

sorting. The infrastructure was designed to have a capacity to handle 500 animals per

day with 5 handlers and a capital investment of R200 000 was required with an

operational cost of R25 000 per month.

After incorporating RFID, electronics and automation of the system it was established

that, on average, cattle handling duration was reduced by 63%, incorrect sorting was

reduced by 5.5%, man hours were reduced by 70% with 23% and 14% less fatigue and

stress levels to the handler and the animals respectively, whilst achieving efficient

selective sorting. A cost benefit analysis was undertaken for both systems with the aim

of assessing and determining the most profitable system. An assumption was made that

the cash flow pattern remains uniform for both systems over the entire evaluation

period. This revealed that the introduction of RFID based technology as an alternative

to a manual based system results in an increase in business profitability by 20% and

shorten the payback period by 5 years. Although there is still need to further

investigate the performance parameters under different environments, it can be

concluded that the introduction of RFID, electronics and automation improves the

overall system technical efficiency by 32% whilst enabling efficient selective handling.