Walk-over weighing (WOW) is a remote weighing technology developed in the dairy industry, and has

been the subject of research for almost 40 years (Filby and Turner 1975). It is a technology that may
potentially provide an alternative weighing method for both intensive and extensive sheep-production
systems. WOW works by collecting liveweight data as animals traverse a strategically placed weighing
platform as a part of their daily routine, and the resultant liveweight records are collected and stored
automatically in an indicator. It is a requirement that sheep walk, as opposed to run, over the platform
in a reasonably slow and orderly fashion to gather reliable liveweight records. These data may then be
filtered to remove any illogical records, caused by sheep running, playing, or fighting on the platform.
Illogical records generally constitute those either 25% greater or smaller than the flock average
liveweight and usually occur as a result of more than one animal being on the platform during
measurement or a single animal not standing with all four legs on the platform. However, the levels at
which records are set to be illogical are at the discretion of the livestock manager. The 'filtered' WOW
data have been shown to be generally more reliable than the initial raw data (Brown et al. 2012), and
may be analysed and interpreted by livestock managers to aid nutritional management of their flocks.
The initial WOW concept incorporated remote individual- animal management (RIAM) technology
(Richards et al. 2006) in the form of radio frequency-identification (RFID) ear tags, commonly referred
to as RFID-linked WOW. Sheep passing over the platform have their weight and individual RFID
recorded simultaneously. The resulting 'RFID-linked' WOW records allow individual animals to be
tracked over time, and have been posited to potentially allow more prescriptive nutritional management
of individual animals (Rowe and Masters 2005; Geenty et al. 2007). RFID-linked WOW data,
however, have been shown in a study involving four independent RFID-linked datasets to be
insufficiently repeatable and too infrequent for individual management of the entire flock,

432 Animal Production Science DJ Brown et al.

because a minimum of 12 RFID-linked records are required to estimate the liveweight of an individual
sheep to within 2 kg with a 95% level of confidence (Brown et al. 2014). This finding is similar to the
findings of similar research in cattle WOW (Filby et al. 1979).
Walk-over weighing systems do not collect reliable records when sheep are forced over the weighing
platform because sheep will often run, not allowing the platform time to collect a liveweight record before
the next sheep steps on. Consequently, data collection relies on animals using the WOW platform
voluntarily. Most systems are set up with some form of incentive such as access to water or a
supplementary feed to entice the sheep to traverse the platform. In some instances, there is little
opportunity to stimulate sheep to cross the weighing platform due to an abundance of pasture feed or
alternative sources of water. Therefore, data accumulation on individual animals may be slow, erratic or
even absent. Consequently, the requirement for 12 RFID-linked WOW sheep weights presents a
significant hurdle to timely generation of accurate individual liveweight estimates, because of the time
required to collect sufficient data on either an individual animal or the entire flock is beyond that suitable
for commercial on-farm decision making; for example, small flocks (n < 100) with rapid data collection
have taken up to 21 days to collect the required 12 RFID-linked sheep weights on the entire flock and
larger flocks (n > 500) are unlikely to collect sufficient data on each sheep at all (Brown et al. 2014).
Second, the large period of time over which records need to be collected confounds liveweight estimations
with daily growth rate. Thus, liveweight estimates that are both timely enough for management and not
confounded by daily growth rate, such as those including data collected over a 5-day period, are unlikely
to have RFID-linked WOW sheep weights on any more than 20% of the flock (Brown et al. 2014). This
issue may be compounded by 'shy' animals that exhibit neophobia (ie a fear of new things) toward the
WOW equipment. Shy animals are evident in observational studies of feeding sheep (Arnold and Bush
1968) and it is logical to assume that 'shy' sheep may also be averse to the WOW platform and, therefore,
may record WOW data either infrequently or potentially not at all.
The concept of mob-based WOW (MBWOW) is similar to the original concept of WOW, less the
RFID technology. MBWOW collects and stores liveweight data that are collated into flock average
liveweight estimates, and decisions are then made on the flock as opposed to the individual animals, or
subgroups within the flock. MBWOW represents a cheaper and simpler application of the WOW
technology and, despite low RFID-linked WOW data frequency and repeatability, sufficient MBWOW
data (after data filtering) can generally be collected within the required 5-day time frames to generate
estimates of flock average liveweight with 95% confidence intervals of less than 2 kg (Brown et al. 2012).
Consequently, mean numeric differences between the estimates of MBWOW and those of static flock
average liveweight and liveweight change have been shown to be 1.9 kg and 1.5 kg, respectively (Brown
et al. 2012).
Like for static weighing, the effect of gut-fill on MBWOW liveweight estimates needs to be considered
because sheep will be weighed 'at pasture' and with a full digestive track. We suggest, however, that
comparative MBWOW liveweight estimates are not as prone to fluctuations in gut-fill as are those from
static
weighing because sheep, generally, follow a diurnal behavioural pattern of feeding and eating
(Gregorini 2012). Consequently, we may extrapolate that sheep will also traverse the weighing
platform in a similar pattern from one day to the next, and thus, gut-fill is unlikely to vary among
MBWOW events.
The application of MBWOW on a whole-flock basis is of particular relevance to the Australian
sheep industry because RFID technology is not mandatory for Australian sheep producers, and it
allows for enhanced nutritional management of an entire flock, the most common unit of
management under commercial conditions. Thus, while RFID-linked WOW technology is not yet
sufficiently developed to aid individual sheep management, its application on a whole-flock basis in
the form of MBWOW offers livestock managers a simple and more accessible tool for better-
informed and timely nutritional management decisions on sheep flocks.

The future of liveweight monitoring in sheep-production systems

This review has indicated that while there are options that may conceivably be used to monitor the
liveweight of sheep in extensive grazing systems, few of them offer realistic solutions, especially in
regards to the timeliness of data collection. Thermal- and stereo-imaging technologies require
considerable development to overcome logistical hurdles presented by the fleece, while the laborious
task of recording body measurements and performing plasma hormonal assays are unlikely to be
commercially viable. Visual assessment, although widely practised, offers a surprisingly poor
indication of liveweight in sheep. Thus, none of these technologies offers any immediate potential
for livestock managers to assess the liveweight status of their sheep.
Assessment of body condition (condition scoring) or fat (fat scoring) by manual palpation offers
viable methods of assessing sheep energy status. Both approaches, irrespective of their technical
differences, rely on the manual and subjective appraisal of tissue reserves of the sheep by the
livestock manager. Without automation, data collection will be, at best, restricted to infrequent
husbandry events such as joining or weaning, and will contribute little to the day-to-day tactical
management of sheep flocks. Subsequently, the potential for either condition scoring or fat scoring
to be used as a proxy for frequent liveweight assessment of sheep seems unlikely.
WOW offers the most feasible alternative for regular assessment of sheep liveweight. The system
is fully automated and may be operated remotely, which are important criteria for application in
extensive sheep-grazing contexts. Data may be used collectively to monitor the average liveweight
of the flock (Brown et al. 2012). Currently, there are challenges associated with monitoring the
liveweight of individual animals due to the number of liveweight records required for a reliable
liveweight estimate (Brown et al. 2014). The individual-animal application of WOW technology
would benefit from further research and development, primarily into increasing the frequency and
repeatability of liveweight capture. Given that progress can be made in these areas, the additional
confidence afforded to WOW data would allow renewed research into its use for individual
management.

Liveweight monitoring technologies for sheep Animal Production Science 433

Flock-based application of WOW represents a timely and relatively accurate (relative to static
liveweight capture) method of monitoring liveweight and liveweight change of ewe flocks. Thus, it
may provide Australian sheep producers with a tool to manage ewe liveweight toward optimum
liveweight profiles that have been proven to deliver production benefits. Financial analyses are
required to explore the likely economic benefits of incorporating WOW into commercial sheep-
production systems. These analyses should reflect the diversity of sheep operations, ranging from
intensive operations such as studs and feedlots to extensive grazing operations of the pastoral regions.
The flock-based application of WOW would benefit from the development of the system to
accommodate more than one sheep on the platform at a time, and to collect reliable liveweights from
running sheep. This would expand its application to production systems that need to collect
liveweight data as mobs traverse through gateways, either moving between paddocks (cell grazing
systems) or on the way to or from the yards (sheep trading systems).
Currently, static weighing is still the principal method of obtaining liveweight data from sheep for
nutritional management. CS and FS are feasible alternatives, yet are, like static weighing, unable to
provide frequent, timely information. As the industry knowledge of the productive and economic
effects of ewe liveweight on both the ewe and on her progeny grows, so too does the importance of
research into alternative technologies to monitor sheep liveweight.