AgriScan Boosts Livestock Counting Accuracy by 83%

• Manual counting and recording are slow and error prone – Staff walk through yards or scan visual tags, manually enter IDs or counts, and often must reconcile duplicates and misreads after the fact. This consumes labour and creates unreliable records.
• Existing electronic tags/readers often cost more than the perceived value – In many operations, early RFID systems used expensive proprietary tags or infrastructure that didn’t fit small to mid sized farms.
• Weigh station handoffs are a bottleneck – Farmers using modern scale heads still had to manually match a physical tag or remember an animal ID while capturing weight introducing delays and occasional mismatches.
• Data fragmentation- Herd records, ultrasound reports, and weighing logs lived in separate systems (paper, spreadsheet, or different vendor software), reducing ability to analyse trends or make fast decisions.
• Durability and ergonomics issues – Tags designed without the farmer’s workflows in mind could snag, fall off, or require specialized applicators that increased costs or training demands.

Our technology consulting team conducted an in-depth audit to identify these operational gaps, leading to a customized solution strategy that improved accuracy, interoperability, and cost efficiency. 

• Low cost UHF RFID ear tags – Tags follow the familiar form factor farmers already use (comfortable fit, resilient plastic), keeping training simple and minimizing behaviour changes in handling. They’re optimized for long read range and outdoor conditions.
• High performance UHF readers with anticollision – Stationary and portable readers capture many tags simultaneously ideal for drafting lanes, loading ramps, or holding pens. The reader firmware uses anti-collision logic, so multiple animals are read in a single pass.
• Bluetooth bridge to popular scale heads & data loggers – AgriScan pairs with TruTest, Tepari, Gallagher and similar scale systems via Bluetooth when an animal enters the weigh platform the reader captures its tag and pushes the ID to the scale head. The measured weight is then recorded against the correct animal automatically.
  
• Seamless integration with on-farm software – Data export (CSV / JSON), API endpoints and connector scripts allow herd managers to bring RFID reads, weights, and timestamps into existing farm management systems and AgriScan’s own   dashboard.
• Field ready hardware and simple applicators – Tags and handheld readers were specified to survive wet, dusty, and abrasive farm  conditions; applicators mirror existing tag tools, so no specialized equipment is required.
• User experience and workflows designed for minimal change – Quick start guides, short on farm training sessions, and preconfigured reader profiles (sheep vs cattle modes) let teams adopt the system with minimal downtime.

• Counting accuracy improved by 83% – Automatic multi read scanning eliminated most human miscounts and duplicate entries. Where manual methods produced frequent reconciliation work, AgriScan produced near instant, auditable counts.
• Weighing throughput accelerated weighing time reduced by 65% – Because tag capture and weight pairing happen automatically, operators moved more animals through the scale in less time typical throughput rose from 40–60 animals/hour to 100–150 animals/hour in handling lines.
• Identification error rate reduced by 92% – Incidents of incorrect ID weight pairings and manual transcription errors became rare once RFID to scale handoffs were in place.
• Labour savings equivalent to 2,400 hours annually (1.15 FTE) – Time reclaimed from counting reconciliation, record clean-up, and manual matching averaged roughly 200 hours per month across mid-sized stations freeing staff for animal care and management tasks.
• Operational cost per weighing/count event fell by 48% – When labour, error rework, and administration are considered, the marginal cost of each weighing or herd count dropped substantially.
• Faster, cleaner sales and compliance records – Automated ID + weight records reduced disputes at sale yards and simplified traceability workflows for buyers and compliance checks.
• High tag read reliability (99% read rate in common setups) – In standard loading lanes and drafting pens, readers consistently captured tag IDs on the first pass; read rates in difficult orientations were improved with multi-antenna setups.
• Rapid ROI payback typically within 9–12 months – For pilots measured against labour savings and reduced weight/identification disputes, capital and operational costs were recovered in under a year in most commercial trials.