We like to think of ourselves as ‘new age’ graziers, incorporating technology in to the work we do each day. Hence Rob carrying a mobile phone in his pocket, with cattle numbers on hand, access to email, an app to check stock waters remotely, camera’s set up on water troughs relaying timely photos to our devices, syncing data back to the office, in Evernote, while in the field  and of course sharing some of the day to day through good old Instagram.

So it seemed natural to invest in a Drone …. we wanted to explore how we could do what we do a little better and a little bit more effectively.

We purchased our DJI Phantom 3 from Sphere  and coincided its arrival with Andrew’s 12th birthday. Of course he took ownership of the ‘learn to fly’ process! A strategy that worked a treat as we reinforced the value of the Drone and the need to watch a few You Tube clips to gain knowledge. Naturally enough, the first 48 hours were not without teething problems as we needed to download software updates and the like.

The particular drone we had invested in, has the camera/video built in and streams live footage back to an iPad or iPhone mounted on the remote control. It also captures a map of the track that has been ‘flown’.

As a pilot, and the key funder of the Drone, I’m grateful for the intuitive and easy to fly controls and the ability for the Drone to easily/safely be on Autopilot meaning it can auto take-off, land and return to home.

We’ve thought of countless applications for this in our grazing business.

Initially we trialled mustering on the milker and poddy herd. It worked a treat. From this we graduated to shifting a mob of 600 weaner cattle in their rotational grazing system. Again, it worked a treat. True to say that no matter what his instrument, the stock handler’s skills remain the same, pressure on, pressure off.

We’ve used the drone to fly along a fence line, spotting where fence repairs are needed. We’ve viewed the pasture and more specifically ground cover from above, we’ve checked tanks and water troughs and even flown along a pipeline looking for leaks, we’ve checked on what Dad is up to out in the field from the comfort of the verandah, we’ve taken aerial shots of the cattle yards and we’ve flown over feed bunks.

It’s fair to say we’ve experimented quite a bit with our new gadget and while it has a range of 2km, we’ve noticed that if flying at low levels, it tends to begin alerting of weak signal when only 1.2km from base. The other biggest limiter for us is the 23 minute battery life. Just as you get the cattle moving or spot what you’d been looking for, the ‘out of battery’ starts shrieking!

The drone is certainly a tool that we will continue to utilise.

For us we prioritise staying abreast of technology advances in our industry, all the while respecting and teaching our kids about the good old fashioned ways. It’s about the balance, right?

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