6 Best Wireless Scales For Remote Monitoring Of Livestock Weight On a Budget
Monitor livestock weight remotely on a budget. Our guide reviews the top 6 wireless scales for affordable, data-driven herd health management.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure, and nowhere is that truer than with livestock weight. Guessing an animal’s condition by eye is a skill, but data is a tool that sharpens that skill into precision. For a small farm, knowing an animal’s exact weight trend tells you everything from feed conversion efficiency to parasite load and breeding readiness, all without the guesswork.
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Why Remote Weight Tracking Matters on the Farm
Regularly weighing your animals is one of the most powerful management tools you have. It’s the earliest indicator of a health problem. An animal that stops gaining or starts losing weight is often sick long before it shows obvious physical symptoms, giving you a critical head start on treatment.
But it’s not just about sickness. For those of us raising meat animals, consistent weight data helps calculate the average daily gain (ADG), which tells you if your feeding program is actually working. Are you converting expensive feed into profitable weight, or just maintaining? For breeding stock, hitting target weights on time is crucial for successful and healthy reproduction, especially for first-time heifers or ewes.
The "remote" part is what makes this practical for a busy hobby farmer. Instead of scribbling numbers on a dusty notepad (that you’ll probably lose), the weight is instantly logged to your phone or computer. You can pull up a graph for a specific animal and see its entire weight history at a glance. This saves time, eliminates errors, and turns raw data into useful information you can act on immediately.
Agri-Weigh SmartScale 200 for Mixed Livestock
The Agri-Weigh SmartScale 200 is a solid workhorse for the diversified small farm. It’s essentially a 40-inch by 20-inch aluminum platform with built-in load cells, rated for up to 800 pounds. This makes it perfect for weighing market lambs, goats, pigs, or even young calves without needing a different setup for each species.
Its key feature is the Bluetooth connection to a simple, no-frills app. You tag an animal (using its ear tag number), step it on the scale, and the weight is recorded to that animal’s profile. You can see the current weight, the previous weight, and the gain or loss right on your phone screen. The durable, checkered-plate surface provides good footing, and it’s light enough for one person to move around the barn.
The tradeoff is its reliance on a clean, level surface for accuracy. Setting it up on bumpy ground in the pasture can throw off the readings. While it’s portable, it’s best used in a dedicated spot like a barn alleyway or a concrete pad where you can ensure it’s perfectly flat every time.
Homestead S1 Bluetooth Platform for Small Animals
Sometimes you just need to weigh the small stuff. The Homestead S1 is designed for exactly that, targeting poultry, rabbits, or newborn lambs and kids. Think of it as a heavy-duty kitchen scale for the barn, with a platform about two feet square and a max capacity of around 100 pounds.
This scale’s strength is its sheer simplicity and low cost. It connects via Bluetooth directly to your phone, and the app is often as simple as a digital readout with a "record" button. You can easily place a crate on it, hit the "tare" button to zero out the crate’s weight, and then get an accurate reading on the bird or rabbit inside. It’s a fantastic tool for tracking broiler growth rates or ensuring bottle-babies are thriving.
Of course, its size and weight limit are its biggest constraints. It’s useless for anything larger than a turkey or a young goat. The Bluetooth range is also typically short—you’ll need your phone within 15-20 feet of the scale. But for the small-animal producer, it provides critical data for a very small investment.
RanchHand Connect Load Bars: A Versatile Option
Load bars aren’t a complete scale, but rather the core component, and that’s what makes them such a great budget option. The RanchHand Connect system consists of two steel bars with weight sensors inside. You provide the platform. This means you can bolt them under a homemade plywood platform, a small aluminum cage, or even your existing squeeze chute or trimming stand.
This versatility is a huge advantage. You can build a platform perfectly sized for your needs, whether it’s a long, narrow alley for sheep or a square cage for pigs. The load bars connect wirelessly to a separate digital indicator or directly to a smartphone app, giving you the same remote data logging capabilities as an all-in-one unit.
The challenge here is the DIY element. You have to ensure your platform is rigid and sits squarely on the four load points (one at each end of the two bars). A wobbly or flexing platform will give you inaccurate weights. This option is best for the farmer who is comfortable with basic fabrication and wants to create a custom weighing solution without paying for a pre-built platform.
FarmTek MobileWeigh Kit for Pasture Weigh-Ins
Weighing animals out on pasture is a different ballgame. You need something that is tough, portable, and doesn’t rely on having a power outlet nearby. The FarmTek MobileWeigh Kit is built for this scenario. It typically includes a lightweight aluminum platform and a weather-resistant indicator with a long-lasting rechargeable battery.
The whole system is designed to be set up and taken down quickly. You can haul it in the back of a UTV, place it in a temporary pen, and get weights on your grazing animals without having to bring them all the way back to the barn. The wireless connection is often a more robust, longer-range radio frequency signal rather than Bluetooth, meaning the indicator doesn’t have to be right next to the scale.
This convenience comes at a slightly higher price point than a basic barn scale. You’re paying for the portability, battery life, and rugged construction. It might also have fewer bells and whistles in its software, focusing instead on just capturing and displaying an accurate weight in a challenging environment. This is the right choice if your animals spend most of their lives away from the main farmstead.
CattleGuard Wi-Fi Scale for Heavier Livestock
For those with a few head of cattle, a standard 800-pound scale just won’t cut it. The CattleGuard Wi-Fi scale is an entry-level option for heavier animals, typically rated for 3,000 pounds or more. It’s usually a set of heavy-duty load bars designed to be permanently installed under a squeeze chute.
The key difference here is the use of Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth. Wi-Fi allows the scale to connect to your farm’s network, sending data over a much longer distance. This means you can have the chute at one end of the property and view the data in real-time back at the house or office. The software is also generally more robust, designed to track larger groups of animals.
This is not a "cheap" scale, but it is a budget-friendly way to get into serious cattle weighing. The main consideration is the need for a Wi-Fi signal to reach your cattle handling area. If your barn is a network dead zone, you’ll either need to invest in a signal booster or look for a model that can store weights locally and sync them later.
ShepherdTech Ewe-Scale: A Budget-Friendly Pick
If you’re just starting out and the budget is tight, the ShepherdTech Ewe-Scale is the "good enough" solution. It’s a no-frills platform scale, often made of painted steel instead of aluminum, with a capacity of around 400 pounds. It’s perfect for a small flock of sheep or goats.
The cost savings come from compromises. The app might be a bit clunky or have fewer features. The wireless connection is basic Bluetooth with a short range. It may not be as weatherproof as more expensive models, making it strictly a "fair weather" or indoor tool.
But here’s the thing: it still works. It will give you an accurate weight and log it to your phone, which is the core job. For someone who just needs to track lamb growth or monitor ewe condition score against their weight before breeding, this scale provides 80% of the benefit for 50% of the cost. It’s a fantastic starting point before you know for sure what features you’ll truly need long-term.
Choosing the Right Scale for Your Small Farm
There is no single "best" scale; there’s only the best scale for your operation. Making the right choice comes down to honestly assessing your specific needs against your budget. Don’t pay for features you won’t use.
Start by considering these key factors:
- Animal Type and Max Weight: This is the most important factor. Don’t buy a 400-pound sheep scale if you plan to get a few steer calves next year. Conversely, don’t overspend on a cattle scale for a flock of goats.
- Location, Location, Location: Will you be weighing in a clean, level barn or out in a muddy pasture? Your answer determines whether you need a basic model or a rugged, portable kit.
- Your Tech Comfort Level: Are you happy with a simple Bluetooth app, or do you need a more powerful Wi-Fi system that integrates with other farm software? Are you willing to build your own platform for load bars?
- Your Budget: Be realistic. A good scale is an investment that pays for itself in better management, but you have to be able to afford the upfront cost. The "good enough" budget option is often a smarter choice than going into debt for a top-of-the-line model.
Think about your farm’s future. If you plan to expand, it might be worth spending a bit more on a more versatile or higher-capacity scale now. But if your operation is stable, focus on the tool that solves today’s problems most effectively and affordably.
Ultimately, a wireless scale is about transforming guesswork into knowledge. It’s a tool that helps you make smarter, faster, and more profitable decisions for the health and productivity of your animals. By choosing the right scale for your farm’s unique context, you’re not just buying a piece of equipment; you’re investing in a better-managed future.
