Handling system helps shepherds process sheep

URBANA, Ill. — Sheep producers can reduce the amount of labor needed to work with their animals with a Te Pari handling system.

“The thing I like most about the Te Pari system is it reduces the amount of labor needed for animal handling because it’s a one-person operation,” said Scott Bowdrige, professor of food animal production at West Virginia University.

“In our research work, this system allows us to go out in the field, drop the machine right where the sheep are, process the animals and then pack it up and take it to the next stop,” said Bowdrige during a presentation at the Illinois Sheep Industry Day, hosted by Illinois Lamb and Wool Producers.

The automated sheep handler is made by a company based in New Zealand.

“It is 100% family-owned and they have done a really good job of making technology simple for people to use,” said Bowdrige, who is also a regional U.S. sales representative for Te Pari.

The Te Pari equipment is shipped from New Zealand to a distribution center in Minnesota, where it is assembled and then shipped to the buyer’s farm.

“I’ve worked with a lot of different handling systems and I’ve never seen sheep who hadn’t been through a handling system before run into one like they do with this one,” Bowdrige said.

Instead of a spring-loaded anti-backup flap, found on many handling systems, the Te Pari has an air-driven hook that goes behind the animal to prevent the sheep from backing up.

“Everything in the system is adjustable to the size of the different animals, including the part of the chute squeezing the animals,” Bowdrige said.

Once the sheep enter the handler, the optical sensors activate a cascade of events inside the handling chute.

“The magic eyes will trigger the alleyway door to close, preventing the next sheep from entering the chute and squeezes the animal,” Bowdrige said. “It doesn’t require a head squeeze, just a body squeeze.”

At this point the animal can be weighed and tipped horizontally on its side.

“It is all driven pneumatically,” Bowdrige said. “There are flaps that pneumatically recess to give you access to the rear end of the animal to do preg checks or trimming feet.”

“You’re never going to get kicked in the shin when trimming feet,” he said. “And the scales are extremely accurate.”

Once the work is completed, the shepherd hits a button, the animal returns to its original position and is released.

“A drafting gate can be automatically opened to release the sheep into a predetermined pen and for most of our systems we work with three or four-way sorting,” Bowdrige said. “The entire process can be done in a matter of seconds.”

All of the handling system models can be put together to be permanent, semipermanent where they can be picked up and moved with a forklift or the trailering option to transport them to different locations.

“One of the new products is an automated dosing gun,” Bowdrige said. “Instead of changing the dial on your drenching gun, it will automatically adjust the dosage to the weight of the animal coming through the system and we can Bluetooth up to four dosing guns to the scale indicator and it can be injectable or oral administration.”

A foot pedal can be used to capture and release the animal, as well as tilt the chute.

“There is also a remote control that’s about the size of the TV remote control that can do everything you want,” Bowdrige said.

For the integrated EID tag reader, it doesn’t matter which side of the animal the ear tag is placed.

“Our Macrostock Scale System is designed to enable the collection of data,” Bowdrige said. “When you’re done weighing your animals it automatically uploads all your data to a cloud server and when you open the Macrostock software in your office, you will have all your data there for that session.”

Macrostock gives shepherds the ability to set targets, track performance and organize reports on groups, sales, purchases or treatments.

“There are a lot of options — you can sort sheep by weight, average daily gain, group or sex,” Bowdrige said. “With new animals, you can update in real time as animals are going through the system.”

“One of my favorite features is the traits button where I can add traits to measure like FAMACHA scores,” he said. “It won’t release the animal until you’ve given it a score and you could do that with body score or add treatments like a dewormer and put in the withdrawal dates.”

Shepherds can see in real time, at chute side, the summary of all the animals that have gone through the handling system.

“I can look at my sessions to see what we did in 2023,” Bowdrige said. “You can look at the history of the animals to see different measurements like fat, eye color score, live weight, carcass weight and fleece weight data.”

For more information about the Te Pari handling system, go to www.tepari.com.