Free Cattle Record Book

Good farm record keeping helps your farm business plan, track what's working, and what's not, identify trends, make decisions to improve your business and to do realistic forecasting. This valuable information helps you make decisions on which practices and methods work and can better predict expected yields, costs and sales.

For cattle ranchers, keeping good cattle records are critical to track animal health, vaccination records, production, breeding and pedigree. Having accurate records are also important for many food compliance regulations and make it easier to borrow money, get grants and complete tax returns.

Read more about getting started with livestock record keeping.

Cattle records to keep

Keeping detailed cattle records, for your herd and for individual animals is critical part of any cattle rancher's job. Here's a list of some of the key areas that you might want to be tracking for your cattle business.

Key cattle records include:

• Ranch tasks and activities performed

• Pasture management and health records

• Rainfall records

• Pasture planting records

• Soil test results

• Pasture amendment and treatment records

• Pasture fertilizer records

• Pasture harvest records for hay production

• Pest inspection records

• Pasture treatments records

• Grazing records

• Individual animal records

• Animal identification details

• Individual animal measurements

• Cow breeding history

• Cow calving and production history

• Animal pedigree and genealogy

• Herd breeding and A.I. Records

• Pregnancy check and pregnancy status tracking

• Tracking herd feeding details

• Herd feed supplements

• Feed costs and receipts

• Herd measurement records

• Herd vaccination/treatment record

• Tracking year-over-year livestock inventory

• Detailed Financial records

• Sales, receipts and income records, including cattle sales and other income.

• Production costs and other expenses

How to keep your cattle records

Keeping quality cattle records can be as simple as managing a paper file for each animal in your herd, using a custom computer spreadsheet, using a pre-built cattle log-book or leveraging a farm management software application.

There are pros and cons to each of these methods. The critical thing is that you keep detailed records for your herd. We recommend choosing the cattle record keeping method that you’re most likely to maintain for the long term.

While some farmers prefer portable notebooks they can take with them in the field, many would rather use an online mobile or web application to keep their records. Unlike paper records and spreadsheets, farm management software streamlines the data capture for your cattle records, provides automated reporting to simplify compliance and decision making and keeps your records safe and secure so you don't need to worry about loosing your paper log book.

Free Downloadable Cattle Keeping Log Book

While we certainly believe that using a computer based cattle record keeping system provides the best benefit and value to your cattle operation (we're a little biased) we understand that some producers may prefer to use a paper cattle log book.

To help make your life easier we've created this free downloadable cattle record keeping book. It's packed with over 70 pages of useful record keeping sheets covering all the critical areas we listed above, plus free cattle forms, conversion tables and more. Check out this free resource to help you to keep track of all your critical cattle animal and herd records.

Free Cattle Records Book Download

Simply download the free PDF and print it. It's designed to be printed landscape (8.5 x 11" paper), double-sided and conveniently folded into a convenient book. Once printed, simply bind it or staple it and fold it into a handy 'pocket sized' book you can take on the go.

Free Cattle Record Book

Cattle Record Keeping Book

.pdf

Download PDF • 1.35MB

If you need additional inserts for your individual animal records (ID, measurements, breeding and pedigree) you can download the 4 page animal record insert here.

Individual Cattle Records

.pdf

Download PDF • 158KB

If you want to streamline your cattle record keeping, check out our cattle record keeping software. We offer a free, no hassle 14 day trial or our complete farm and livestock record keeping & management software designed to help you run a more efficient, productive, and profitable cattle business. With Farmbrite you'll find all the features you need to be better organized, keep better records, manage your resources, track production, identify trends, gain valuable insights, and increase efficiency and profits.

Farmbrite provides an all-in-one farm software platform designed to help modern farmers and ranchers know more, grow more, and sell more, all from one easy to use place. Plan, track, sell, and improve with our integrated farm & livestock record keeping, planning, management, tracking, sales, and reporting software to run a thriving agriculture business.

To learn more about how Farmbrite can help your cattle operation keep better farm records head over to www.farmbrite.com and start a free 2 week trial.

This article and cattle record keeping book was written and created by our knowledgeable staff of farmers and ranchers at Farmbrite. Thanks for reading and happy farming.