 So our next speaker is Aaron Lechle. I hope I've said that correctly. Aaron is a mixed farmer and sheep producer from Coomendook. Aaron and Annika, along with their business partners, Tim and Cheryl Freak, run a business, a mixed cropping and livestock operation. One of the most innovative aspects of their operation has been their use of EID and sheep, collecting data on wool traits and body weights at the level of the individual animal. And using this data to select replacement use. Today, Aaron will give us a local producer perspective on what it's been like adopting EID and individual animal management. So I hand over to Aaron. Thanks, Aaron. Yeah, so as you heard, we run a mixed farm of sheep and cropping located between Coomendook and Sherlock. So we've got fairly variable soils. Got some shallow limestone as well as non-wading sands and that's a mixed farm, suits fairly well. Yeah, we run about 3,500 breeding merinoe use. Half of them will get mated to a white suffix and the better half will get mated to a self-replacing, so to a merinoes. Just before I get into the EID stuff, there's a lot of other stuff on a farm that can make just as big an impact or sometimes bigger. That's good not to shy away and get just caught up on the technology side of things. Sometimes the basics can actually make a bigger improvement in your business. So just a couple of photos here. Got a bit of electric fencing to try and utilise pastures better. And then the confinement feedlot, which allows us to manage the paddocks better in the summertime. We can get all the sheep off of the land and not let it blow away. And also allows our paddocks to get away before they get sheep on them for lambing in middle of June or early June. So that's just a couple of little things that help us and we can feed them to whatever energy requirements they need and yeah, so that's been a big help in our business. Yeah, so why we choose to do EIDs pretty much just because we want to keep improving everything about our business. The flock management is easier and you're not just selecting blind, which yeah, is easy to do. Unless you track everything, you just can cut out the better sheep as Nathan was saying earlier and hopefully increase profitability. Yeah, and as Nathan said before, what's not measured is hard to improve on. And yeah, just up the top there, that's our stick reader that we use, EID ear tags that we use down the bottom corner there. So we'll start from the start, like how we start collecting data. So basically at marking time, yeah, the night before we'll scan in the tags as a single or as a twin and then put it in the right lamb and so that's what they're born as and yeah, hopefully in the future we can start weighing them as we mark them, which would be nice, but we're not quite there yet. Can weigh them at weaning now. So yeah, once we get that marking weight, we can track growth weights a little bit better. Yeah, so then yeah, those merino lambs will then get shorn in January and yeah, then go on to the next stage that they can get a data entry. So as a U-hogget, they will get just a rough visual classing just to weed out anything that doesn't look right, but then most of it's just done by using the technology. So at shearing time, we'll use that wand to scan the ear, take a little piece of fleece out and put in a bag and that gets sent away with the barcode on it and get the wool test on that and then that U-hogget will get weighed a couple of weeks after shearing, just let them recover a bit and then once we get that data back, we've got a bit of a profile on that sheet, what it's cutting, it's growth rates, what it's actually weighing now. So then we can make an informed decision on which ones go into the merino mob and which ones just get mated or what sulphate should get prime lambs. So this is how some of the data comes back. This is just some of the wool stuff mainly and the weight is there on that individual sheet and over there we'll have what it's born as and that as well. So we are reasonably, it takes a few years to get all the data in place and get it. So we're reasonably new at it but we're having a go. So yeah, that's obviously one of our better ones. It's ranking really well in the DP plus and the MP. It's yeah, a nice sheet, good fiber diameter and yeah, that was a really high body weight as well, that one, so that's obviously one of the better ones. So that one went into the merino mob and so this is how we do it. Just put them through the auto drafter, select what you want to be your cut off point and they'll just get drafted right or left or straight ahead. Yeah, according to which mob they're going in and then at scanning time we also scan that all the twins will get put in that they've been scanned as a twin so that'll go on their individual data and all the drys will get also scanned. Like currently we're just trying to build numbers like just about everyone is. So we have been keeping drys, given them a two or three chances but a dry will never get a second chance in a merino mob. So if she's dry, she'll go out and get mated to White Suffolk next time but she'll also have that cross against her name for the future. Yeah, and one other thing at weaning time also we go through them and get the dry. So if they've scanned in lamb and then they haven't carried their lamb through to weaning time, they'll also get kicked out and into the crossbred mob, the White Suffolk ram go over them. And then basically the reason why is it was brought up before pretty well. We just lack this one together roughly overnight. Yeah, so we can kick out those bad performers in our mob and increase the profitability of it. Yeah, so yeah, that's pretty much a quick spill on what we do without going into too much detail. Yeah, so any questions? Thank you, Barry. Just a quick one for me before we hit the floor. Can you tell us what some of the challenges or some of the easy wins that you've had from implementing EID in your business, I think? Yeah, so I guess there's always going to be challenges with technology, especially if you're not very technology minded. Yeah, some people's really good at that, but yeah. So always a lot of little technical issues, but you get past them and it's all about just learning how to run those programs and do it better and you probably are better off just letting the experts do the data stuff. Yeah, I guess some gains. If sheep ever get boxed up or anything, you just run them through the auto drafter and it's all problem solved straight away. And you can use that as a management tool. So when you need larger mobs to graze paddocks to get better past utilization, you can just run them through the auto, box them all up and then run them through the auto drafter when you need them in separate mobs again, which is very good. Yeah. Aaron, you said that you put your twins in the system as Lambda twin. When that comes to your indexing, do you just have a formula in the index that allows for that? Or do you class them as twins in single separately or how do you work that through? Yeah, so we've only just started getting that data in the system, so we need to let that go into, over to the experts basically to work out, to give them a preference, yeah, so that they get an extra little tick against their individual ranking. And yeah, so then in the long run, they're born a twin. They've had twins for three years in a row. They're going to be our most profitable shape probably with a good wall cut, so yeah. There's still a long way to go to get it all nailed, but yeah, you just got to start by collecting that data, I guess before you can actually get the opportunity to use it. Yeah, I guess when it comes to your shearing in your class and your wall, did that take much to implement through the working of the shed? No, not too much. Probably the main thing is you just got an extra labor unit in there, so you just got a person focusing on scanning that tag, getting a piece of wall, putting it in the bag and getting the barcode printed out, so it's just an extra, extra labor unit and yeah, you sort of got to be a little bit more switched on I guess if you keep an up loose here isn't to make sure that that sample is with that one. Yeah, but it's yeah, it's nothing that can't be done like it's, yeah. You can work out a system for it, so yeah. Do you have any problems with the sheep losing their tags or the shearers deciding it's a good idea to cut half a mouth? Yeah, I guess you're always going to have those problems that you had before EID tags, but yeah, it's only a small percentage and yeah, it's not the end of the world I guess, but yeah, a lot of times, yeah, the majority of them stay in. Have you had to try different tags to find what worked for you the best, Karen? Not really, we have used a couple of different tags, but yeah, we've been happy with both. Yeah, so they do the job as long as that chip stays on the head, so yeah. I really appreciate you taking the time out today to do that. Thank you. And thank you, and thanks for the opportunity to show you what we do. Yeah, on the farm, and yeah, we just want to keep improving the business and yeah, and definitely after your speech, I'm more excited about, yeah, about the future of the industry, like we do have a long way to go, but there's a lot of exciting stuff on the way, so yeah. Thank you.