There is a great opportunity for SME’s to boost the productivity of
their farm and agriculture-related small business through use of a few
of the many quality products available on the market. With such a
significant number of small businesses in this sector, this would have
a massive impact on all economies globally.
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Imagine if ranchers and livestock farmers could gain better
insights into their businesses, improve sales through more focus on the
key areas of their businesses, track stock movements automatically,
store breeding and genealogy data in real time, monitor animal
productivity metrics, track cull information and the like in a cost
effective way. This would allow them to focus on what they do best,
running their farm or stock yard rather than tedious administrative
activities.
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Well, the good news is you can!
By finding the right software, your
business can achieve a dramatic improvement in its performance. And
what’s more, there are quality solutions out there that will not
stretch your wallet, and that’s good for everyone…
Types of livestock management software
Whether you are running a cattle ranch in the USA, a dairy farm in
New Zealand or a plantation in South America, there is software
specifically tailored to your operation. Within livestock farming
alone- ignoring the supply chain and related agri-businesses, there are
recordkeeping software products for management of cattle, dairy, sheep,
horses, pigs, goats, alpacas, wildlife (eg deer) and the like. All of
this software allows primary producers easily to monitor their
livestock ranch operations and save precious resource.
It is also useful to distinguish standalone or separate software
(more often used by small business) from solutions that integrate a
range of modules into a combined software package. In addition, one can
separate online / web based applications from packaged software
products installed on your own PC / server.
Key features of animal recordkeeping
Livestock management software, also referred to as ranch management
or herd management software, is used to describe any software that
assists in the management of livestock operations on farms or ranches.
Basically, any operational, budgetry or financial, aspect of your
livestock or herd operation falls into this category. The key building
block of this category of software is livestock recordkeeping software,
for managing animal records on the farm or ranch.
This software runs on both desktop PC’s and servers, and even
extends to portable wireless handheld devices / PDA’s. This allows you
to move freely about your farm while updating information directly into
the back end system. You can record livestock transfers, paddock
grazing information, scan electronic id’s (EID) for animals and the
like- without even having to turn you PC or write anything down. And
what’s more, the devices are designed for rugged farm environments.
Key features of livestock recordkeeping solutions include:
- Recording mating and conceptions
- Management of calving birth records
- Analysing and tracking progeny
- Slaughter and carcass recording and analysing
- Semen and embryo inventories
- Storing livestock purchases and sales
- Full tracking of individual and group animals (herds / mobs)
- Electronic ID (EID, NLIS and animal tags) – integrated into the software
- Artificial insemination (AI) and group servings
- Breed association integration
- Weigh scale integration
- Livestock picture storage
- Milk recording
- ...and more
How does livestock software benefit you?
The benefits of finding software that is designed specifically for
your business- that speaks your language and meets your specific
operational requirements- are enumerable. This is most evident in small
business software, where significant value is gained from this
extensive functionality at a good value for money price point.
By freeing up time taken up by typically arduous manual
administration tasks, you give yourself more time to focus on ‘working
on the business’ – planning the most valuable activities to spend your
time on. This improves your decision making significantly, as errors
are eliminated and day to day recordkeeping activities become much less
of a drag. This saves your business essential scarce resource,
particularly over time.
What’s more, by using livestock recordkeeping software, you
introduce visibility of your business’ operations. You can easily and
quickly see all daily transactions, assess productivity metrics, track
budgets, check stock levels (eg fertilizer), etc at the push of a
button. Moreover, the task of capturing this data in the system is
minimized. All of this amounts to a much more efficiently run
operation- with less time and effort from you! Surely your time is
important enough to you...
Through the key reporting, graphing and integration features of
most systems, management reporting can also be done at the click of a
button. Not only can you generate reports immediately for your
accountant and for your own internal purposes, but you are able to
export data and generate reportsw for the necessary enterprise / stock
regulatory bodies, such as Breed societies.
Let SoftwareShorlist help you to find the right software for your
business through our free online service. After an assessment of your
business software needs, we provide a custom shortlist of relevant
solutions from our carefully selected database. Plus we make it easy
for you to assess and compare the software in your shortlist, with side
by side comparisons and detailed reviews. Get started now, by filling
in the drop downs on the top-right of this page.
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