5 minutes with Aimee Charteris Founder – Smart Shepherd What is Smart Shepherd technology? Smart Shepherd is an award-winning technology that measures the maternal performance of free-range livestock. It accurately identifies the lambs raised by each ewe and measures the strength of the ewe-lamb bond. Smart Shepherd is a game-changer for improving mothering ability, productivity, eating quality and welfare. How did your interest in sheep/lamb monitoring technology emerge? How did you come up with this idea? I was raised on a Gisborne sheep and beef farm and went on to train as a Livestock Geneticist. Most of my working career has been spent in and around red meat supply chains, working out where and how we can improve the supply chain.
The team and I have worked in the sheep industry for the last 18-years. We have always had a desire to use proximity technology to characterise behavioural traits that may improve welfare within production systems. While the primary aim is to improve maternal success in the genetic space, we saw the opportunity to use this technology in commercial operations to select fit-for-purpose maternal replacements in any production animal species that are run on large scale.
farmers wean 150 percent, but we
What do you think the biggest drawcard for reproductive behavioural monitoring technology such as this is?
What are some of the most exciting things you have seen in the last few years in the ag tech space and why did these get your attention?
Knowledge. Good mothers are the heart of any family. Gathering further knowledge around the variation that exists in maternal success can be used to harness further increases in production. This is particularly important when we appear to have reached the ceiling in some systems — such as sheep. Most commercial
Monitoring technology in the
believe the gap between scanning and weaning could be considerably reduced. There is currently no other way to obtain this information on a large scale, in a cost-effective manner. There are other means such as DNA but for a commercial farmer, this is generally cost prohibitive. For those who have invested in radio frequency identification (RFID or EID), it creates a mechanism to extract significant value out of this investment.
dairy industry. This technology comes in the form of a collar which monitors the health and wellbeing of individual cows, specific aspects of reproduction and overall herd or group management. Collecting real-time information, then making fast and efficient decisions, demonstrates a producer’s commitment to the
Most commercial farmers wean 150 percent, but we believe the gap between scanning and weaning could be considerably reduced.”
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wellbeing of all. Around the globe customers now prioritise welfare and environmental values in the products that they purchase and they will do this even more in the future; making this game-changing technology.
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