Farm406

FARM 406 42 • systems on hotel room doors. Pet owners also use RFID technology to tag pets so the owner's information can be down- loaded when the pet is found. RFID tags are also used to track runners in marathons, track sports memorabilia to verify authenticity and to track inventory in a warehouse for the progress of auto- mobile construction in a factory. There are literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of different uses for RFID technology in the world today. Jeremy Blampied, Marketing and Business Development Manager for Te Pari Products, a leading manufacturer of RFID tools used in cattle ranching said, "RFID technology has been a game changer in the cattle industry in recent years. It makes identification of animals easy, and that's information ranchers can use to save money and protect their bottom line." Blampied says when connecting RFID technology to a scale, for example, you can quickly record a steer's weight and then use that information to per- form other tasks automatically. Te Pari manufactures RFID enabled load bars that can be placed under a cattle chute to weigh an animal. When a steer enters the chute during vaccination season, the animal's weight is automatically recorded. When used with a Te Pari dosing gun or vaccination gun, a vaccine's quantity is automatically measured and loaded into the gun based on the weight of each ani- mal. For medium to large sized ranchers in Montana, this can mean a savings of thousands of dollars each year, even after the RFID equipment is paid for. With vaccines costing as much as $2,000 per liter and some needing to be applied two to three times a year, you don't have to be a math genius to see how attractive RFID technology can be to the bottom line. "One of the biggest challenges in the industry is administering the correct dose of medicine, and verifying the entire herd has been treated," Blampied said. "If you under dose an animal you are essentially pouring that medicine down the drain. And, you can also build up resistant parasites as a result, too. Product resistance is a nationwide prob- lem and perhaps the greatest cause for LEFT: Ranchers weighing and vaccinating cattle on the La Cense Montana Ranch near Dillon, Montana. BELOW: Recording the weight of an animal in the chute using Te Pari Products load bars connected to a keypad and display. A rancher applies a dewormer using a Te Pari dosing gun on the La Cense Montana Ranch near Dillon, Montana. The amount of dewormer used is automatically determined by the weight of the animal using RFID technology.

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