Farming Innovation: Embracing Mobble in the Dairy Industry

Meet Billy Buckingham

Billy Buckingham is a third-generation dairy farmer from the lush landscapes of Jancourt East in Southwest Victoria, Australia. His family-owned enterprise has stood the test of time, and now operates as a 415 head dairy run by Billy alongside his Dad and Uncle.

Having gained off-farm work experience at Telstra, Billy returned to the family property18 months ago with an open mindset and a determination to seek out farm improvements and efficiencies. During his search Billy discovered livestock farm management app Mobble and started a free 21-day trial. 

“It just seemed less complicated, that's what drew me to it. I did the trial and gave it a go. From there it really sold me on accessibility, easiness, and the support from [Mobble].”

Billy's Journey with Mobble

Billy has seen the product come leaps and bounds since he began using Mobble in 2022 thanks to Mobble’s willingness to listen to farmers and respond to feedback through product improvements and updates. 

“That's mainly what drew me to keep using it. Any suggestions I gave the Mobble team, whether it was a silly question or not was taken on board. You weren't made to feel stupid either, and that's a nice feeling to have from customer support.”

Billy’s top three Mobble features are all recent additions that came directly from farmer requests, including his own. These are drag-and-drop mob moves, adding map assets such as pipelines and electric fences, and opening gates to run stock between multiple paddocks.

“They're probably the three key things that are new in the last 18 months. It's something that's really great that I use all the time.”

Efficiency Boost: Grazing Management and Geolocated Tasks

Billy uses Mobble’s grazing management features to make informed decisions on improving pastures. By being able to see at a glance how long a paddock has been grazed or rested, then dive deeper into a full grazing history of the paddock, he can target his efforts in the right places. 

“Mobble is great for that aspect because we're finding paddocks that aren't performing as well as they probably should, they might need to be re-sown or there's an imbalance somewhere. So it’s helpful for our business to see what the rotation is.”

Mobble’s geolocated tasks also create efficiencies and reduce frustration. “Often you're driving up the paddock and you can see that a fence is not working, but you're doing another job and you forget about it. Now I can add it into Mobble while I'm there and it will remind me to go back and fix it instead of going, “oh shit” when it's two weeks later and you want to put the cows back there and you can't because the fence has fallen over.”

Connecting the Farm's Trusted Advisers

Another new feature Billy is making the most of is Mobble Connect, allowing him to add his trusted farm partners to his Mobble account for full transparency. So far he has granted access to his animal nutritionist, meaning she can see critical information that helps her provide the best advice. 

“She'll come and test the silage, so she'll know exactly which paddocks are for silage. Then if the cows are losing condition she could go ‘righto, in the last 10 days they've been in that paddock, let's go and have a look at the paddocks and see what we might find.’ It just gives more of a scope to diagnose what the problem could be.”

Billy is excited about the future of technology in farming and looks forward to embracing tools that make a difference.

"I just think that's the future and it's only going to get better. That’s why I promote Mobble, it's really changed our business and made it a lot easier on me instead of going back to paper."

To learn more about how Mobble can help your farming business, visit www.mobble.io.

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