Livestock Feeding Robot
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. A pair of Texas ranchers have built a ROBOT to help with one of their more mundane tasks: feeding.
River McTasney and Hunter Allemand (al-uh-mand) are the duo behind the V1 Ranch Rover that McTasney says can you save time and money …
McTASNEY … “I know our operation, we save about 15-hours a week with it. There’s some that I’ve come across that’ll save about 22 hours a week. So, I would say it’s safe to say within the target market of this machine, we’re looking at 10 to 25 hours a week, maybe even up to 30 and 40 for those really big places.”
The machine can carry up to a ton of feed out to grazing spots, using GPS, and the animals don't seem to mind it …
McTASNEY … “Yeah, I haven’t seen any kind of fear even initially, but once they see food come out of it, it’s a no-brainer, it’s the gravy train. They come right to it. They know what it’s here to do. They may even come to it a little bit more because there’s not a human in it and there’s no kind of predatorial factor to it.”
The Rover works in cold or 100-+-degree days, rain or shine.
It can run on rocky roads or rangelands, and starts at $55,000 …
McTASNEY … “For our early adopters, we have a limited lifetime warranty and support. So, those are first-come, first-served for these first machines out. That way we can insure they get all of the mechanical updates and software updates that are going to come as we push out into more finished models over the next year or two.”
Just go to www.smoothag.com for more.
