Automated DeDagger

Summary

The De-dag technology has been developed from a series of industry driven projects that were in response to a number of high cost problems associated with heavily dagged cattle. The manual tool is currently in operation at John Dee Warwick and the costs to the industry have been identified to include:

• dirty cattle penalties
• excessive product loss through trimming
• higher food safety risk
• slower kill floor chain speeds
• extra labour for cleaning and trimming

The aim of this project was to develop a prototype robotic de-dagger system based upon the manual unit installed and operating at John Dee, Warwick, for operation on the abdomen. The system includes a carcase orientation and restraint device, and a surface profiling sensor mechanism.

Objectives

The objective of the project were to convert the manual dedagging unit to a robot to make the process operator deficient.

Key findings

The project was terminated prior to being completed. The building blocks of the project were:

• development of the manual tool to suit a robotic interface (Completed)
• carcase orientation and restraint device (not completed)
• carcase scanning and path trajectory hardware and software (Completed but not trialled in a works).

Benefits to industry

The benefits to industry included the potential to remove significant costs associated with daggs at the time of processing. These costs included dirty cattle penalties, excessive [product loss through trimming, higher food safety risk, slower kill floor chain speeds and extra labour for cleaning and trimming. 

MLA action

The technology is feasible if a mechanism to orientate and restrain the animal can be tested and proven. Following from that, further work is required to prove under operating conditions that the scanning and path trajectory software functions as required.

Related MLA projects

A.TEC.0081; P.COM.0109