A new software makes it easier for farmers to track how much feed livestock receive.
Ames-based Performance Livestock Analytics uses bluetooth technology to track each pound of food that goes to each animal and each dollar associated with the animal.
Performance Livestock COO and co-founder Dustin Balsley explained that the current way producers track how much of each ingredient goes into the feed wagons, is by paper and pencil.
So along with CEO Dane Kuper, they started Performance Livestock to eliminate some of that work.
“Producers are now feeding with an iPad,” Balsley, 29, says. “They are spending hours each week getting this information collected. So what we do is completely automate that process and are more accurate because the data is being recorded in real time.”
Performance Livestock is a cloud-based web app that launched in January of 2017.
“The response has been phenomenal,” Balsley says. “We are growing faster than expectations. Nobody thought we would take off like we did.
We went full boar and now we are all full time and doing it for a living.
Balsley said both him and Kuper grew up on livestock farms.
Before Performance Livestock, Balsley grew up in Osage and graduated from Luther College. He would teach social studies for three years before going to work at Climate Corporation and another AgTech company in Orange County, California.
The Performance Livestock offices are located inside Research Park at Iowa State University.
“The majority of innovation has happened on the row crop side of things and we feel like we are on the forefront side of innovation,” Balsley said.