My experience is that the person who is sure the benefits outweigh the drawbacks is typically someone who does not actually do the work.
At least that is how everything that is sold to us where I work as - the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
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Yes, this is currently what we’re using in equines. It’s an implantabile bar code. It’s not writeable.
Is there anything here that says implantable?
A writable drive needs a POWER SOURCE. Implanting a power source has all of it’s own issues. See: pacemakers.
You said there was an implantable, writable microchip. Let’s have that link.
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Those are the ones people are getting injected into themselves. Look up body mods - I’m not going to bother doing your research for you since clearly your goal is to be adversarial.
By the way - the first link did have the built in power supply. Researchers at Columbia built it.
I don’t have to prove anything to you to discuss a half baked idea with people who are interesting and fun!
Have fun with your research!
Edited to add: Blergh - I let my annoyance at the constant rebuttal get to me - here’s the link https://newatlas.com/electronics/worlds-smallest-single-chip-system-injectable/
I think I need to meditate - clearly the baiting and sarcasm is working - this will be the end of me responding to you.
The chip was developed in 2021. It’s still really new. But hardware develops really fast.
Here are some other fun new technologies that have come across my feed recently:
The auto-waterers with meters
Automatic timed hay and feed feeders (I would have thought these were way more expensive - these are in line with a lot of built ins)
https://www.stablegrazer.com/product/automatic-feeder-kit/
There was another German one that I can’t find now.
Ride monitors for equestrian performance tracking
I’m sure there are more, but all of those are so new now. They won’t be in 10 years.
And here’s some tech from cattle.
Innovation will happen in horse barns too (I’m not suggesting horses can be fed like cattle). But robot feeders are certainly an interesting idea!
Models will change, labor saving devices invented, easier methods of customer communication created. Consumers will help to drive these changes but largely it will be driven by a dwindling labor market and a need for profit.
But the barns that run on paper and don’t change will not survive - every industry eventually changes, or dies completely.
Yep. Sucks to have to do tracking. I empathize. But sometimes that helps make sure you have a job. Sometimes it helps the customer (depending on context).
So it’s a necessary evil. Without controls, many organizations fail miserably. My goal when building apps was always to make it as painless as possible. The only way to do that is to learn and innovate.
Some of the big ERP apps are the ultimate-worst. They give everyone a bad name.
our chips were used for us to specifically ID an animal since the chip’s data can not be altered they could be registered I would suspect but we have no need to do so.
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I wasn’t sure how those worked exactly. That’s pretty neat. I no longer resell horses but I would be chipping them if I did. And I do want to put some sort of tags on/in my tack.
Wonder how much barcode readers are now? They used to be pricey.
I think if I were a large breeder I might want to invest in something like chipping them all. I’m not - but it is neat to see.
Oh crap, they’ve gotten cheap! And I know that you can get apps on your phone as well.
And barcode generators are free. The stickers are pretty cheap too.
I might play with this just at my own barn to see how it works. Fun stuff!
we tired barcode reading for inventory control at a small business I owned, the whole setup at least when we tired it (early 2000s) it was just too complicated fpr us at the time to deal with
I see that current scanners can be had for under $20
Yeah, I think it has become a lot easier. Hubs does the setup for tracking all the inventory at work and it’s become much more streamlined.
You could go simple and have a bar code sheet for hay/grain that gets scanned after the horse’s stall gets scanned. Laminate that and hook it to the feed cart.
Or you could go the whole way to tagging individual portions of feed.
Fun to play with, it’s really just a font that is easily readable by systems and people find it more palatable than clicking a button on their phones sometimes.
The problem I’ve had with microchips is they migrate.
Seriously my dogs microchip is between his front legs now. Total pita.
Microchips are fairly old tech, a company was using them for employees back in 2019/2020.
Quick google pulled up this company. https://www.hidglobal.com/solutions/rfid-tags-animals
Yeah - the regular ones are old tech but the new tech are the ones with the inbuilt piezoelectric power.
That would be annoying to have to scan your horse all over - but that’s going to happen anyway at the USEF barns. That sounds like an interesting drama waiting to happen!
Seriously, just let me do my fucking work with the minimum of interference.
As a freelancer, I managed to avoid this at many jobs, but now I’m finding even as a contract worker I’m required to track a bajillion things (beyond my hours and actual work) because managers love all these bells, whistles, and project management systems. But at least I can track at a desk in a climate-controlled environment while snacking, unlike a barn worker.
OP, your posts are exhausting. One of the reasons a lot of people want to work at a barn, despite all the many inconveniences, is that they don’t have to deal with office work bullshit. If someone came to me with a pitchfork (excuse me, and a glove) and an iPad for tracking how many flakes of hay I gave per horse, and tick boxes for said different varieties of horse, I would run the other way.
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Ah, the good old “do your own research.” A trolling tactic! How nice we’ve ended up here. Nothing you’ve posted describes an implantabile, writable chip.
Oh no, don’t be silly: you’ve got to do all this from your own personal device!
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It’s been 4 days and 355 posts, so no way am I reading them all…but to answer the original question -No.
I would in no way want or need this level of itemization which I find to be overkill. I much prefer a set rate, owner can tell me what’s included or not, and I can decide what works. I can’t see many owners wanting to keep track of all this for multiple horses either. It’s a bit much for my preference.
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I have a retired air fern who gets a couple handfuls of senior feed a day as a vector for his supplements and is fat on drought grass right now.
On paper, this kind of arrangement has always looked appealing. Especially when he was in the stall next door to my sister’s late hard keeping TB, who ate three big meals a day and as much hay as we could shove down his throat. It was very apparent that these two horses had a different cost of living. My horse was really offended about the whole thing.
Thing is, in this kind of model (using your spreadsheets way upthread as an example) by the time I add on the things that I consider essential horse care, like blankets, fly spray, and med administration, it all evens out. Sure, my sister’s horse costs more to feed, but I’m still paying basically the same to meet my guy’s needs as I would in a non-package model. So your pricing stops becoming a market differentiator and we are back to what makes your property a better fit for my horse than another one and the same price range. In my current boarding price model I don’t feel like my horse and his not a lot of grain are subsidizing anything for the horse next door- I figure he’s expensive in ways his neighbor is not (certainly in staff time, since I’m a lunatic about blanketing and they kindly haven’t kicked me out for it.)
I get what you’re trying to do here, but a key piece I think has been missing from the discussion so far is who is the client you want to attract? You have a minimum standard of horse care represented by the theoretical minimum package so thus far you and your potential clients agree on how to take care of a horse. If you want to segment beyond that, what are the personas who would pay for each added package? Who do you want on your property? Because I, not a pain in the ass, generally easy retired horse, using your aisle to groom and your field to turn out and maybe walking up and down the lane, am a very different proposition from someone who is going to want to feed 15 supplements that aren’t pre-packed and alfalfa pellets at lunch and use your ring and set up and tear down your jumps. And both of us are different from a novice adult with her nice sensible quarter horse who just wants to trail ride and have fun but is going to take more of your time because she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know yet. A different service model is going to appeal to each one of us and set the other’s teeth on edge.
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Been There, Done That. Won’t go back. Never again, nada, nyet, no way.
I am at a full service barn. Love it. So many less worries on my part.
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OP, out of curiosity, since you have tracked everything for your own boarders, what is the difference in cost between your least expensive and most expensive client? Are you able to include all man labor and maintenance attributable to each horse vs. just feed/bedding costs?
Better to state as % over/under your board rate rather than as $, if you don’t mind?
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If barn owners want to make their lives easier do a credit check and ask for references before letting people move in. That would solve 95% of your problems right there.
I’ve worked and boarded at barns that nickel and dimed like this and it’s a pita. No-one likes it. Employees hate being on the hook for making sure Dobbin only gets 3.5 flakes of hay and no more, boarders hate that they have to keep asking for stuff they prefer the staff just decide on (like how much bedding to add).
Charging more for stallion board or individual turnout? Sure. Weighing the amount of bedding you use? I’d just leave.
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