It’s an exciting time when you can grow your herd – whether it’s adding more cows because you have more forage or additional acreage, retaining replacement heifers or other factors. This can also be a challenging time and strain on your current systems and processes, so let’s make sure you are ready for herd growth and set up for success.
Get started with basic cattle inventory details
Getting started can be tough, but it doesn’t have to be. A good first step is to take inventory of the cattle you have and record basic information, such as identification numbers (eartag/management code, brand, etc.), physical description (color and markings, breed, etc.) and date of birth (even if it's just an estimate). Gathering these details and tracking them, ideally in a software program, helps you have a good, solid foundation for your current inventory. You can easily add more details – such as purchase information, historical calvings, breeding details and medical treatment records – later if and as you have the opportunity, or maybe someone can help enter the historical details if that information is important to the herd and can easily be accessed and recorded.
Record and track events as they occur
Once you have a current inventory of cattle in your herd, it’s important to keep the records current with new information, details and activities. For example, after moving cattle from one pasture to another, be sure to record that information as soon as possible so that you and others working with you can view and analyze current details. Many cattle software programs have a way to easily add and update details for multiple animals at the same time. This enables you to enter the details once, and the details are then copied to the selected animals’ records. This can usually be done for a variety of activities, including medical treatments, breeding activities and more.
Review and analyze records for better decision-making
You put lots of time and effort into tracking your cattle records and keeping them updated, and it’s important to get the most benefit from your systems and processes. Many software programs have a variety of reporting and analysis features.
For example, entering calf weaning weight enables you to calculate a variety of measures, including adjusted weaning weight, which is a way to standardize a weaning weight based on 205 days, and most probable producing ability, which is an in-herd way to rank a cow’s ability to wean a calf with a high weaning weight ratio.
Maintaining a list of each cow’s progeny (calves) and how the calves perform in terms of weight and sales is another way to determine a cow’s productivity in your herd. Since each herd is unique, along with your goals which may differ over time, reviewing key metrics that are important to you is another way to benefit from a good record-keeping system.
Enable others to help with recordkeeping
Keeping track of cattle and events on the ranch can seem like a major project, but having others help makes the records easier to maintain. In addition, involving others, such as employees, owners, etc., is a great way to decide what recordkeeping looks like for your ranch and what systems and processes are best for your ranch at this time or might be in the future. Many cattle record-keeping software programs are web-based, which enables all your records to be in one central location. You can add users who can access your records, and many programs have the ability for you to designate certain roles for each user. For example, you may want someone to have full access to all records, including being able to add and make changes. There may be other users you want to limit to just viewing records. The idea is to have other people involved in adding, maintaining and using the records to help with day-to-day cattle management and also to make better decisions.
Bringing it all together
When rebuilding or growing the herd, it’s important to have good record-keeping processes in place. It’s best to start with basic inventory records, have a way to maintain and update records as needed, use reports to help make decisions and have others help in the various aspects of keeping records. Make the most of the opportunity to be sure everything is in place for successful growth!
