Techion Group’s Fecpak G2 was unveiled to farmers for the first-time at a Beef + Lamb New Zealand Farming For Profit technology expo in Alexandra, earlier this month.
The hardware plus subscription service – a bit like a mobile phone deal – allows users to submit samples for analysis over the internet without so much as a pellet of poo going in the post.
“Basically you take a traditional dung test, look at it down the microscope and then put it online and a qualified technician reads the image of the sample,” explains Techion’s managing director, Greg Mirams.
For those who send samples away, it saves the time and cost of postage and risk of degradation of samples resulting from the delay between collection in the paddock, to preparation in a laboratory.
“There’s also no danger of the courier losing them,” notes Mirams.
For those who’ve been doing their own egg-counts, it provides an independent and auditable check that the farmer, who may only be looking at such samples a few times in a season, is getting counts right.
“Effectively it takes away the fear factor of looking down the microscope and asking yourself do I see what I think I see: it’s a confidence issue for those who do their own samples,” he explained to Rural News.
The Fecpak G2 results are returned online “within hours” and a farmer may opt to make them simultaneously available to his veterinarian, advisor and other stakeholders in the business.
Results can be graphed over time and with the images of each sample slide stored, as well as the results, the justification for drench use is auditable with images available for checking at a later date – if need be.
With a growing focus on minimising drug use in food-producing animals worldwide, Mirams believes traceability and audit chains will be valuable to some customers.
In due course, the aim is to be able to supply clients with results in real-time, so drenching decisions can be made with sheep still in the yards or preferably, says Mirams, before they’re even yarded.
At present, the service is only available for sheep, but cattle tests will be added by the end of the year.
Facial eczema spore testing is a possible extension of the technology down the track, he adds.
