Controlling the controllables

By Sarah Millar, Chief Executive at Quality Meat Scotland

Q-Catch 7416

Q-Catch 48

Arrowquip has added two new products to its extensive Q-Catch mobile cattle handling range, giving beef and dairy producers more options to improve cattle handling safety and efficiency anywhere on their farms.

When we’re firefighting with the immediate issues of an energy crisis and escalating costs of production, it can be difficult to look beyond the day-to-day. Where we can ensure we continue to progress however, is by controlling the controllables. This has been our focus at QMS. We are thinking big picture but keeping our activity simple and targeted. Our consumer campaigns are now 100% digital, as this is where we are seeing the best engagement and allows us to easily flex with changing priorities and attitudes. Our consumer website has undergone comprehensive change to complement this.

A key priority has been meeting with our levy payers and stakeholders. Kate, our Chair, and I had a full summer of events and meetings across the country alongside the team and members of our board have been at the marts throughout the Autumn sales.

We’ve reformed our standards setting process and standard setting committee structure, based on feedback from the open meetings this summer. In a first step in this, we are offering greater transparency as we review the pig standards, adding in a new stage for producer feedback on the proposed changes before they are formally adopted.

We have also dedicated activity with schools around Tasty Little Pork Week and supported the industry initiative to boost consumer sales, Porktober.

The Industry Development team has taken great strides in its work including on meat eating quality and we also continue to progress our DNA project.

In January, we appointed a dedicated Industry Strategy Manager and Public Affairs Manager, Lucy Ozanne. This has paid dividends with a changing policy and regulatory landscape post-Brexit, a new agricultural bill in formation and growing pressure on the industry to respond to the climate crisis.

In the year ahead we have some exciting new developments for the Industry Development team and a change of focus following the publication of our Meat Eating Quality report, which we will be announcing early next year. Our marketing campaign has a new message, and nine new Monitor Farms were announced at AgriScot last month.

There is no end to the Ukraine war in sight, and it’s hard to predict what the year ahead will bring, but our core aim at QMS is to ensure that our levy payers have the tools in their toolkit to access high value markets and to operate as best they can.

The new units – Q-Catch 748 and Q-Catch 7416 – feature the Q-Catch 74 Series manual squeeze crush along with the Easy Flow Adjustable Cattle Race in one towable unit allowing farmers to transport their cattle handling system anywhere work needs to be done. The 748 features an 8’ Easy Flow Race, while the 7416 gets a longer 16’ race.

Both units are manufactured with a first-grade steel top and bottom frame and feature a tractor tow bar and manual jacks.

A five-year guarantee is standard, with lifetime guarantees on the crush’s rubber floor, rump fingers, squeeze locks and headgate locks.

Key features

The Q-Catch 74 Series is the mid-range cattle crush in the Arrowquip manual squeeze offerings. It features the 3E Q-Catch Head Gate with a vertical bar design that allows light to enter the front of the crush when the gate is closed to draw cattle forward without force. The infinite lock headgate and parallel squeeze will secure in any position – allowing a small calf or a large bull to be worked on without the need for adjustments. A sliding headgate handle allows the headgate to be operated anywhere along the working side of the crush, enabling operators to run the rear sliding door and headgate simultaneously.

Other features of the Q-Catch 74 Series crush include multiple access points with full-side horizontal opening top and bottom doors which can be pegged together and operated as one, removable top gates, and a drop-down and removable needle access door for TB testing. It also has a textured rubber floor that features a lifetime guarantee.

The 748 features a single 8’ adjustable race, while the larger 7416 uses two 8’ sections to create a 16’ length. Sheeted sides with removable top blinder panels keep cattle flow moving forward by preventing cattle from being distracted from activity outside the race. A simple pull rope allows the race width to be widened or narrowed to suit different sizes of stock.

An optional weigh platform kit fits within the race and supports Tru-Test and Gallagher loadbars.