Commercial scales are used across a range of industries, from standard manufacturing to pharmaceuticals to food production. The agriculture industry is another that relies on accurate weighing data to keep profits up and operations running smoothly.
Whether you grow crops or raise animals (or both), quality industrial scales can help you track inventory, reduce waste, manage livestock, and much more. Check out these four uses for farm scales, and discover which scale types can help support your operation.
1. Weighing Crops
Managing crops is one of the biggest reasons you need a weighing scale for agriculture settings. For starters, you need to know precisely how much your yield is so you can calculate costs and plan for future crop cycles. The weight information from one cycle can inform your planting, harvesting, and selling strategy for the next season.
An accurate scale will also help ensure your customers receive the right amount of product. Accidentally selling too little product can lead to trouble down the road, while selling too much will eat away at your profit margin.
Crop Weighing Scales
What types of scales are good for weighing crops? It depends on which stage you are in. For simply weighing crop yield, you can use platform scales or crane scales. If you work with cash crops and transport goods, you’ll need a vehicle or truck scale. Vehicle scales will help ensure you are not exceeding load limits and can calculate the weight of the crops being transported.
2. Weighing Livestock
Knowing the weight of your livestock can help you monitor their growth and health. You can check in at certain growth milestones to ensure your animals meet their benchmarks, which will let you know if you need to rethink their nutrition and adjust their feed. For livestock that you sell or slaughter, weight tracking can help you determine the right time to sell to maximize your profit.
Livestock weight will also help you determine how much medicine to give to sick animals and may flag any changes in health. If an animal’s weight drops or increases suddenly between weigh-ins, it could mean the animal is sick or needs their nutrition and activity level adjusted.
Livestock Weighing Scales
When weighing farm animals like cattle, sheep, goats, and lambs, you need something far larger and sturdier than your average bathroom scale. You will want to use something like a livestock scale, which is lower to the ground and may even feature a ramp, making it easy to walk your livestock on and off it.
3. Weighing Feed and Feed Ingredients
You want your livestock to grow at the right rate and maintain a healthy weight for producing milk or quality meat. To accomplish this, you need to ensure they receive the right amount of nutrients, which means monitoring their feed.
Industrial scales can be used to measure feed and feed ingredients. Too much feed, and your livestock may become overweight. Too little feed, and you risk malnourishment. By weighing your feed with scales, you can help keep your livestock healthy and cut down on the monetary costs associated with overfeeding.
Plus, knowing exactly how much you are feeding your livestock means you can better estimate and plan for feed costs.
Feed Weighing Scales
For smaller operations, a bench scale should be perfectly fine for measuring feed or the feed ingredients you use to mix your own. However, if you run a large-scale operation, you might need the higher weight capacity of a floor scale.
4. Weighing Fertilizer
Just like properly measuring feed for your livestock is important, so is measuring the fertilizer you “feed” to your crops. You want to make sure your crops receive the proper amount of nutrients so you can maximize quality and crop yield. Using too much or too little fertilizer can significantly impact crop yield, and over-fertilizing comes with the additional cost of wasted product.
Fertilizer Weighing Scales
Bench scales are often the best option for weighing fertilizer. It’s easy to load up bags or other fertilizer containers and get an accurate weight.
Find Industrial Scales for Agricultural Use
UniFide CST has built a reputation for superior products and services, and we’ve helped countless farmers and ranchers like you improve their processes through the power of industrial scales. Whether you’re interested in owning a scale or participating in a short-term or long-term rental, we’re happy to help. Contact us today for a quote.