Key considerations when registering your calves

AgriNet HerdApp

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Key considerations when registering your calves

CONSIDERATIONS WHEN REGISTERING CALVES FROM A SMARTPHONE

Calving is a busy time for farmers. To have an optimally run calving operation, every process needs to be as efficient as possible and followed similarly by everyone working with the calves. Registering calves births is a process that can be streamlined. This is key to Lean Farming as it simplifies the workflow.

Minimise paperwork and administration when registering calves births

In the peak of the calving season when there are a number of births in one day, it good practice to send birth registrations to AgFood in batches rather than individually. Not all farm management apps allow you to do this. With AgriNet HerdApp, farmers can do registrations a few days at a time or weekly if they wish. To receive a batch of calf cards in the post, AgriNet Herdapp allows farmers to enter many births and then send the registrations as a batch to the department. Some farmers will want to process registrations more instantly for example if they want to get bull calves moved on as soon as the BVD result is back. Farmers can streamline the calf registration process to their farm preferences.

Colour coding within AgriNet HerdApp allows a calf birth to be registered quicker and simpler

When entering a calf's birth details on AgriNet HerdApp, the cows (i.e. calves) are colour coded so you can easily see which are registered (GREEN), which are not (RED) and which have a card back (WHITE) or not.
When a farmer is building up calf registrations to send to DAFM in AgriNet HerdApp, they are shown in RED and it is quite obvious that they are not yet registered.
A farmer proof reads the registrations not yet sent to the DAFM (in RED). If there is any errors, they can be fixed at this point before sending to the DAFM. A batch of calf registrations are then submited to DAFM.
Once the calf registrations are sent to the DAFM, they are changed from RED (not yet registered) to GREEN (registered).
Once the card arrives in the post, farmers can tap the green square on the calf registration so that it changes the colour to WHITE (registered card back).
This is a very helpful management tool in AgriNet HerdApp that allows the farmer at a glance to know which calves are registered or not and tracking when the cards are back.

Minimise errors when registering calves

On Agfood.ie, the farmer must enter every bit of data pertinent to the calf registration. As soon as each individual record is submitted the registration is complete. If any human error is made, an amendment needs to be submitted to DAFM. Often the error isn't noticed until the blue card is received in the post.
With AgriNet HerdApp, once the farmer enters the cow's number it shows up what she's in calf to and when she is due. A calf's ear tag can be easily entered by a simple scan. If the tag number is entered manually incorrectly, HerdApp will not allow it to save. Even if the wrong sex is recorded by human error, this error can easily be fixed without causing unnecessary administration. These details are saved to HerdApp, and the farmer can proof read the details and if needs be edit from there before sending the calf registration to Agfood.ie.
In some other herd management apps, calf registration's can only be submitted individually. In this case if an error was made, the farmer needs to contact DAFM to amend the error.
If a cow is less than 290 days calved, AgriNet Herdapp will alert the farmer which saves on human error and saves time on an incorrect calf registration being returned from DAFM.

Everyone on the farm updating calf birth registrations

If there are a few people on the farm, it is good practice for everyone to have AgriNet HerdApp active on their smartphones or access it via computer/tablet/ipad. Many hands make light work when it comes to data entry. This also takes the onus off one person doing all the calf registrations online and other data entries. One person can input a calf registration, this is saved up to the cloud and can be seen on all devices. Then depending on the farm registration preferences, the farmer can decide when to send away the calf registrations.

Use a farm management app that creates automatic lists

Agrinet HerdApp automatically compiles animals into different lists. For example cows due to calve, freshly calved cows and bull calves born to be sold. Farmers who like to sell male calves before they reach 42 days of age(pre TB requirement) can easily see the list of calves fitting this criteria.

AgriNet HerdApp, helping farmers masterfully manage calf registrations effortlessly

AgriNet HerdApp is the new standard in farm herd management designed to link your herd directly to ICBF and Agfood from your smartphone. It’s all about speed and simplicity and getting all the basics done quickly while outside. AgriNet Herd App is owned by Irish Farm Computers Ltd, based in Co. Meath who own AgriNet Herd Master the PC version of the herd management software. AgriNet have been catering to farmers herd management needs for the last 26 years. AgriNet have built up a quality team of customer support and sales staff along with a loyal customer base. Farmers can be reassured that HerdApp is tried, tested & trustworthy.