B+LNZ Urges Farmers to Prepare Now for El Nino Conditions
Are you ready for El Nino? That’s the question asked by Beef+Lamb NZ’s Ian Tarbotton who leads B+LNZ’s farm extension service.
StockScore, developed by Central Otago veterinarian, farmer and agri-entrepreneur Becks Smith, is designed specifically for use in the yards. Built for one-handed use and capable of working offline, the app allows farmers to record body condition scores as they work, removing the reliance on notebooks, memory or paper records that are often lost once the job is done.
“Body condition scoring has been part of good livestock management for decades, but the weakest link has often been capturing the information in a way that’s still useful weeks or months later,” says Smith.
StockScore was officially launched at the New Zealand Veterinary Association Conference in Auckland, where Smith presented the platform to sheep, beef and deer veterinarians.
“Farmers already understand the value of body condition scoring. StockScore isn’t trying to change the way they score animals - it’s simply making it easier to capture that information in the moment, keep it all in one place and use it to support better management decisions over time,” she says.
“Our goal isn’t simply to digitise body condition scoring. It’s to help make one of the livestock industry’s most valuable management tools easier to adopt, easier to record and more useful over time.”
The designer says the app supports sheep, beef cattle and deer, allowing producers to manage body condition records across all livestock enterprises from a single platform. It provides instant mob summaries, body condition score distributions and trend analysis, giving farmers a clearer picture of how mobs are tracking over time.
The app also provides direct access to industry-recognised body condition scoring guidance, supporting more consistent scoring across farms and making it easier for users to refresh their knowledge whenever required.
Smith says StockScore has also been designed to strengthen collaboration between farmers and their trusted advisors. In addition to farmer subscriptions, the platform already includes an advisor tier that enables veterinarians, consultants and other rural professionals to view body condition score data with their clients’ permission. Future development will focus on deeper integration with existing farm management software and other rural technologies, ensuring body condition data becomes an increasingly valuable part of everyday farm decision-making.
www.stockscore.co.nz
