Today, we are segregating the cattle that have been earmarked for slaughter in the coming quarter. We do this every 12 weeks, because cattle create family groups, and the process of removing certain animals is more humane when large groups are suddenly reshuffled. Our cattleman introduced this when our number became large enough for it to be worthwhile, and it has helped to reduce herd stress (it's a thing).
In the United Kingdom, there are mountains of rules and regulations on cattle slaughter and aging. In 2020, we had a programmer create a nice little add-on to Excel that helps the animal selection process. Our selection process is entirely driven by the software, which gets its input from government regulations, current meat prices, weight and age. In all, our software considers 30 variables. Our cattle foreman initially double-checked everything in disbelief that all this could be done automatically in seconds, but now he just audits the process, when the selection seems odd. The model is dynamic, as the input values change, including regulation. An added benefit is that we create an automatic reporting entry for slaughter cattle. The government requires detailed statistics on each animal, for us this is entirely automated, and the final data point we produce is when the meat is loaded in the wholesalers' transport lorries
The same goes for our herd of goats, although with an important holiday in four days, the goat herd will take a hit, as demand for whole goats is very high. The other big date for our goats is mid-April, the end of Ramadan this year. About half our meat goats are slaughtered for that date (and it is 100% pre-sold).
This is the reality of farming.
Note: The software was written to integrate with all the reports we have to prepare and send to the government, there are special reports too from our slaughterhouse. Almost everything is automated, report-wise.
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