The way to weigh: today's livestock scales are more accurate and more high-tech than ever before

摘要

We buy by them. We sell by them. We measure medicine and make marketing and management decisions by them. They're scales. And they're becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity for cattle producers all the time. Why weight? There are as many reasons for weighing animals as there are ranchers in Texas, but the majority fall into two categories. "The majority of folks I see are looking for scales [to get weights] for buying or selling," says Shane McFadden with Sooner Scale Inc. in Oklahoma City. Increasingly though, he says, producers are also looking to scales for a second reason: herd management. They are using scales to identify sick cattle, those with low rates of gain or those that have lost weight.