Lifelong farmer Ruth Kneebone on using Mobble on the go for peace of mind and easy audits
Meet Ruth Kneebone
Ruth Kneebone and her husband Noel are lifelong farmers based in Everton, Victoria. Prior to the pair meeting, Noel was a cattle farmer while Ruth ran sheep. When they joined forces, they combined the two. The duo have been married for more than 40 years and, together with their son, they run an operation with around 125 Angus cattle and 200 first cross ewes and poll rams.
Ruth and Noel purchased their current farm in the early 1980s, when Ruth was heavily pregnant with their daughter. In total it’s about 900 acres of rolling granite hills and lush river flats. With great access to water for their livestock, the riverside is also a place for the family to gather for recreation and relaxation. Over the years, they have expanded their holdings by acquiring several smaller, non-contiguous parcels of land, which they manage as a single enterprise. Despite the spread-out nature of their properties, they effectively treat these parcels as one cohesive farm, a system that has worked well for them.
Noel is the full time farmer on the property, with Ruth taking on more since she’s “not working” (Ruth’s definition of not working includes being on the hospital board, involved in a local charity and on several local committees). Their son works off-farm full time but joins them on the farm when he can.
Mobble’s practicality a win for the farm, and the auditor
The Kneebones were introduced to Mobble through Ruth’s nephew, who uses the app on the family farm where Ruth grew up. After the previous system they were using became obsolete, Ruth decided to give Mobble a go. She was immediately impressed by the practicality and user-friendliness of the app, particularly how it allowed her to manage all aspects of their farm from the convenience of her phone. “I do really like the mapping, because my husband can know how many hectares are in the paddock he’s spraying - which he’s doing this morning - so he can work out spraying rates and sowing rates. It’s really helpful.”
Ruth continues, “We use it for our pasture applications and livestock treatments, births, deaths, livestock numbers. Stocktaking is not a thing we do anymore because it’s all in the app.”
When they had an auditor come by recently, he was already familiar with Mobble. Sitting around the kitchen table, Ruth was able to show the auditor what they’d applied to the paddocks as well as drenching and vaccination records directly from the Mobble app on her phone. He was able to access all the information he needed quickly and easily, and “it made the audit so easy.”
As the chief bookkeeper in the family operation, Ruth logs activity in Mobble as it occurs. Things like livestock treatments, casualty records and method of disposal iare all important compliance requirements and they go straight in the app on the go. Ruth explains, “Mobble is helpful like that. And I like to record the births as they happen. I create a new mob as the animals are born. I find it useful to know how many have calved and how many are left to calve.”
Multiple locations? No worries.
Managing paddocks across different locations could cause issues, but for Ruth the mapping feature of Mobble is particularly helpful. “We use Mobble to keep track of where things are. It’s helpful when you’re moving stock, to record the movements [when they happen]. I use the open gates function a lot - it makes movements between paddocks easy to record.”
Ruth and Noel Kneebone have successfully integrated Mobble into their farming operations, helping them manage their paddocks, livestock and land across multiple locations. The app's practical features have not only improved their record-keeping but also provided peace of mind during audits and other compliance checks.
As a lifelong farmer, Ruth revels in being outdoors. “I love being able to do your work outside, especially on beautiful days. It’s nice to be able to watch the trees that you’ve planted grow, and see the improvements that you’ve made on the land come to fruition. At this time of year the wattle trees put on a good show, and we planted them.”