Roy Roberston: using Mobble to save time and keep it simple
Coming up to his third year using Mobble, Northern Tableland NSW local, Roy Robertson, has been farming since day dot. With two properties under his name, Roy uses Mobble to stay on top of the day-to-day and save time across record-keeping and compliance. Read on to learn how Roy makes the most out of using Mobble.
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Farm Snapshot
On the home block, Wanderriby, Roy runs 700 Merino ewes joined to border leicester rams, and 800 crossbread ewes that produce second cross lambs - on top of running a Santa Gertrudis stud with 300 odd cows. His second property, Kilcoy, is a superfine wool and commercial Merino operation with 1,700 ewes and 1,700 wethers.
Why Roy chose Mobble to help with farm management
Before jumping on board with Mobble, Roy’s first point of call for record-keeping was his top-pocket notebook.
“Recording all our data was becoming very time-consuming. My wife, Nan, was probably the one doing a lot of it. We had to input all our data into a spreadsheet so we could track things properly.
“We looked at other programmes for a couple of years and they didn’t quite suit our operation. We found that Mobble was the simplest one and we just love to keep it simple. It’s just so quick to use. "
"In terms of the record-keeping, that’s probably an hour or two a week my wife doesn't have to spend doing that - which is huge.”
Using Mobble for auditing & compliance
From LPA (Livestock Production Assurance) audits to staying on top of requirements for the RWS (Responsible Wool Standard), Roy puts his trust in Mobble for compliance assistance.
“It really comes in handy for our auditing. We had an LPA audit recently, and we could easily show the auditor that all the criteria was easily met in Mobble.
“We've got all the data they need in Mobble. Our chemical records, all the batch numbers and things like that. We can demonstrate that we used pain relief and had it on board at shearing time. Another thing that we have to do for our RWS is measure our ground cover - which is very easy to do in Mobble.
“We do improvise a bit to cover all bases. For instance, we use the task section of Mobble for our visitor log - which works fine.”
*Mobble is designed to be flexible so this kind of improvisation is great and we love to hear about farmers’ tips and tricks to help Mobble work best for them!
Learn more about using Mobble for Compliance Record Keeping and Audits here.
Two properties. Zero worries.
With two properties 30 kms apart, Roy uses Mobble to stay on top farm records and communicate information with farm managers - without having to say much at all!
“I can easily look up the records on the other property, rather than getting the manager to text them to me (which is what we were doing before Mobble).
“I can drill down into any level and find out information about mobs and paddock performance easily. The other day I needed to bring steers from the other property, and I could easily find them without worrying the farm manager.”
Days grazed feature a winner for Roy
One of Roy’s favourite things about Mobble is our ‘days grazed’ feature - helping him with grazing management without relying on memory.
“The days grazed feature I think is fantastic because you can easily forget how long you’ve put a mob in a paddock. To quickly access the days that paddock has been grazed is great.
“At the moment we’ve got some paddocks that are in quarantine - they’ve been sprayed and new pastures are being planted. When we open up Mobble, it easily shows up that those paddocks are in a grazing withholding period. It’s just good and simple.”
Keeping in touch with the Mobble Farmer Community
Roy is a member of Mobble’s closed facebook group - a collaborative space all about farmers asking questions, giving feedback and sharing handy tips and tricks for using Mobble. He says it’s great to learn about what other Mobblers are up to and give feedback on new features.
Keen to give your two cents? Join the Mobble Facebook Group here.