Dairy
Dairy: For Farmers
What Dairy changes for the person actually doing the work.
For the person running the business, the test of any farm software is whether it removes work or adds it. Dairy is the most data-rich enterprise on most farms and the most fragmented, with milk recording, parlour software, herd health and the milk contract typically in four unconnected systems. This module joins them: every cow's lactation, health and breeding history alongside the milk contract terms that actually determine what the milk is worth.
In their words
What the job actually looks like
These are not marketing personas. Each one is a distinct job with a distinct constraint, and the module is designed so that solving one does not create work for the others.
Dairy farm manager
350 cows all-year-round calving
Needs margin over feed visible weekly, not at the year end.
- Register the herd and individual animals
- Record daily yields and health events
- Load milk recording and bulk tank results
- Manage breeding and fertility cycles
Spring block calving grazier
220 cows
Needs grazing and fertility managed as one system.
- Record daily yields and health events
- Load milk recording and bulk tank results
- Manage breeding and fertility cycles
- Monitor quality against contract thresholds
Herd veterinarian
Routine visits and health planning
Needs complete medicine and health records before the visit.
- Load milk recording and bulk tank results
- Manage breeding and fertility cycles
- Monitor quality against contract thresholds
- Calculate margin over feed
End to end
How Dairy runs, start to finish
The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.
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1
Register the herd and individual animals
This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
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2
Record daily yields and health events
The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
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3
Load milk recording and bulk tank results
Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
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4
Manage breeding and fertility cycles
Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
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5
Monitor quality against contract thresholds
Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
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6
Calculate margin over feed
This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
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7
Plan health interventions with the vet
Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
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8
Reconcile the milk cheque against the contract
The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.
Capabilities
What Dairy does
Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.
Record and plan
- Individual cow record with lactation, yield, health, breeding and lineage
- Milk recording integration with yield, butterfat, protein and somatic cell count
- Bulk tank quality tracking against contract thresholds and penalty bands
Operate and monitor
- Milk contract manager with price schedule, A and B pricing, and volume commitment
- Margin over purchased feed calculation per cow and per litre
- Mastitis and somatic cell count control programme with cure and dry-off protocols
Comply and evidence
- Fertility management including calving interval, submission rate and conception rate
- Calving and youngstock rearing with growth targets to first service
- Dry cow and transition management protocols
Analyse and improve
- Lameness scoring and mobility programme
- Parlour and robot performance monitoring
- Milk from forage calculation linked directly to the grassland module
Traceability
The chain behind one batch
Livestock traceability is statutory, the reporting window is short, and it runs through a different national system in each nation. The record is assembled as the animal moves rather than reconstructed at audit.
BATCH-801F18
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Born on holding
- Who
- Holding of birth
- Evidence
- Ear tag applied and registered
- Held in
- British Cattle Movement Service
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Health intervention
- Who
- Veterinary practice
- Evidence
- Medicine record with withdrawal period
- Held in
- Medicine book
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Moved
- Who
- Haulier
- Evidence
- Statutory movement report within the reporting window
- Held in
- British Cattle Movement Service
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Received
- Who
- Destination holding
- Evidence
- Arrival recorded, standstill applied
- Held in
- Holding register
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Slaughtered
- Who
- Approved abattoir
- Evidence
- Kill sheet, classification and food chain information
- Held in
- FSA
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Sold
- Who
- Buyer
- Evidence
- Batch linked to the carcase and the holding of origin
- Held in
- Platform record
Take the record with you
Worked example
How a business like yours would use Dairy
The problem: Needs margin over feed visible weekly, not at the year end.
What they do
- Register the herd and individual animals
- Record daily yields and health events
- Load milk recording and bulk tank results
- Manage breeding and fertility cycles
What changes
- Litres per cow
- Margin over purchased feed
- Somatic cell count
This is an illustrative worked example built from the module design, not a customer reference. Named case studies are published only with the business's written consent.
What we are hearing
The problems people describe to us
These are composite statements drawn from user research conversations, not attributed customer quotes. We publish named references only with written consent.
I am not short of software. I am short of one place where the same field means the same thing in all of it.
The scheme closed on a Tuesday evening. I had the application half built. Nobody told me the budget was nearly gone.
We farm on both sides of the border. Everything takes twice as long and I still cannot see the whole position on one screen.
Audit week costs me three days. Every single record they ask for is already written down somewhere on this farm.
Measurement
How you will know it is working
The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.
- 01Litres per cow
- 02Margin over purchased feed
- 03Somatic cell count
- 04Calving interval
- 05Milk from forage percentage
- 06Involuntary culling rate
Free tool
Run the numbers for your own holding
Enter your figures and get an answer you can act on, with the method shown so you can check it. Save the result to your account or take it away as a PDF.