Pig Imager Eliminates Weight Scales

Pig imager eliminates weight scales HOG EQUIPMENT & IDEAS Hog Equipment & Ideas (351) 14-2-23 A Danish inventor-manufacturer who received his Ph.d. at Kansas State University exhibited a revolutionary new hog "imager" at the Agromek show that lets you weigh hogs in their pens without putting them on a scale. Swend Jensen says the idea behind the new hand-held computerized device is that hogs with similar measurements weigh about the same. Spring-loaded measuring arms and a walking cog wheel measure the width, length and depth of a hog, feeding the data into a miniature computer that compares those figures with the dimensions of thou-sands of other hogs in its memory, and then feeds out a weight that's no more than a percent or two different from what you'd get if you put the animal on a weigh scale. "You just run it once down the back of the animal to measure the width and length of the body, and then turn it to run down the side of the animal to measure the depth. It takes only a few seconds to get a reading and you don't stress the animal by herding it onto a scale," says Jensen, noting that the new imager lets growers easily take random readings to keep track of weight gains. Sells for about $2,000. The company is looking for a U.S. distributor. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Svend Aage Jensen, Director, Dumatic AS, Selma Lagerlofsalle 15, Soborg 2860h, Denmark (ph 45 31 67 15 27; fax 45 31 67 15 27).

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