Datamars acquires Prattley

Completing a perfect union of farm infrastructure to animal identification for livestock producers around the globe.

Datamars announced today that it has acquired animal handling equipment company, Prattley Industries Ltd. With this strategic move, Datamars combines its own livestock traceability and productivity solutions with Prattley’s world leading handling solutions to offer a complete package for livestock producers around the world.

The acquisition is a further step in line with Datamars’ goal to deliver solutions that empower livestock customers to be more sustainably productive.

The demand for meat and dairy products continues to grow significantly around the world – at the same time as producers face the competing demands of more sustainable use of resources such as land and water, and greater traceability to enable food security and more targeted animal health practices.

With the acquisition of Prattley, Datamars adds an important component to its livestock management offering, creating a more complete solution for livestock producers (and particularly sheep farmers) as they manage these growing demands, especially when it comes to traceability.

Datamars GM – Australasia, Matt Cashmore says “Adding the Prattley handling solution to our existing EID tag and reader solutions gives us a significant foothold in sheep handling equipment and a strong offer for producers as markets around the world look to move into traceability.”

“Biosecurity and animal health continues to be a pressing concern for many economies. Governments and agricultural industries around the world are focussing on national and regional efforts to develop and bolster traceability schemes for livestock – moving to stronger positions on RFID in line with consumer demands and to ensure best practice food production, animal welfare and sustainability.”

“This is most apparent in the Australian market as farmers look to adapt quickly to predicted mandatory traceability schemes for sheep and goats. Datamars’ more complete solution means producers can prepare and meet mandatory traceability requirements with greater ease while realising added value from Datamars’ traceability technology. Ultimately, end users will be able to make better, more informed decisions, taking actions where necessary to improve the health and performance of their stock, and the profitability of their operation.”

Prattley’s range of handling solutions, including mobile yards, drafting units and conveyor belts provide a safe and versatile system to help farmers physically manage stock efficiently without compromising stock safety and welfare. They are a great fit working together with Datamars Livestock’s weigh scale indicator, load bar, visual and EID tag solutions.

“Through this combined, complete solution, livestock producers are better equipped to track, weigh, treat and manage livestock movements in line with precision decisions around, for example, feed management, health treatment, and culling.” explains Matt.

The pairing also strengthens Datamars’ position as the only company worldwide offering customers a complete end-to-end solution from animal identification, traceability, weight and activity data capture to cloud-based reporting and insights.

Prattley will immediately be able to take advantage of the scale of Datamars’ global sales and marketing capabilities, and manufacturing and supply chains, expand into new markets, and take the value of Prattley to more farmers and producers around the world.

“Prattley is a very successful business with great people – we want that to continue, and to help the business grow further and reach more livestock producers around the world” explains Matt.

Datamars will become the primary global reseller for the Prattley equipment which continues to be available as it exists today for livestock farmers. The company will be continuing to operate from its Temuka-base in South Canterbury, New Zealand with all 26 Prattley employees joining the Datamars team.

Find out more at www.prattley.co.nz