Food, Pets & Land · Mobile + Web
SmallHerd: small farm livestock records for goats, sheep, and hens
Tag numbers, kidding dates, and treatments for a handful of animals, not a feedlot.
SmallHerd is a small farm livestock records app for keepers with a handful of goats, sheep, pigs, or hens. It tracks tags, kidding and lambing, treatments and the withdrawal dates you enter, and movements, then prints the packet a buyer asks for.
Waitlist Not built yet Updated 5 September 2026
What problem does SmallHerd solve?
A buyer stands at the gate with cash in his jacket and asks what the doeling was treated for and when. The answer is in a notebook in the feed room, in a phone photo of a syringe box, and in your memory of a wet Sunday in March. Two of those three disagree with each other. The same gap shows up in quieter ways. You want to know which ewe threw twins two seasons running, and the lambing dates went on the back of a feed sack that later went in the fire. The hens are laying less and you cannot say when the moult started. A vet asks the weight of the goat you are dosing and you guess out loud. Farm software does exist, but it is built around a thousand head and a herd manager, and the trial runs out before you have finished entering your nine animals.
Herd record sheet
One dated line per animal event: breeding, kidding, hoof trims, treatments, weights, and moves.
| Date | Animal ID | Event | Details | Weight | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Free to use. No account. Nothing you type here is stored.
What would SmallHerd do?
SmallHerd would put the animal first. Each one gets a record with its tag or tattoo, birth date, dam and sire, and a photo for the ones you know by face. On top sit the events a small keeper cares about: breeding date and the buck or ram used, kidding or lambing with numbers born and alive, hoof trims, worming and other treatments, weights, and every move on or off the holding. You enter withdrawal dates yourself, from the label or your vet, because that figure depends on the product, the species, and where you farm. When an animal sells, you print its history as one packet. Barn entry works with no signal.
How would it work?
- 1Add an animal with its tag or tattoo, dam and sire, and a photo you can recognize.
- 2Log breeding, kidding, hoof trims, and treatments from the barn, signal or no signal.
- 3Enter the withdrawal date from the product label or your vet, and see it against the animal.
- 4Print a sale packet for one animal, or a flock summary for your own use.
Who is it for?
- Dairy goat keepers milking a handful of does and selling kids each spring.
- Smallholders running ewes, a house cow, and a laying flock on the same few acres.
- New keepers whose first sale is coming and whose notebook lives in the feed room.
What does hobby farm record keeping look like on paper in a barn?
Buy a hard-backed notebook with sewn pages and keep it in a zip bag on a nail by the feed bins. A ring binder loses pages to goats and to damp. Write in pencil. Ink runs when the bag comes in wet, and pencil still reads after a winter in a barn. Give the front of the book to identity. One line per animal: your own herd prefix and number, the official tag number if the animal carries one, any tattoo, the birth date, the dam, the sire, and a short description of markings. Those identifiers are what a buyer copies onto a sale note and what an inspector reads off the ear, so they have to match the tag rather than the name you actually call her. Put the name in brackets afterwards. Keep the rest of the book as one dated line per event, newest at the back, never sorted. Date, animal, what happened, what you used. Breeding dates, kidding and lambing with numbers born and numbers alive, hoof trims, any product given with its name and lot number, and any date you were told to wait before selling milk, meat, or eggs. Withdrawal times differ by product, species, and country, so copy the figure from the label or ask your vet, and write the actual calendar date instead of a number of days. Photograph the pages every few weeks and let the photos back up. A notebook holding a season of lambing is worth more than the animals if the barn burns. Once a year, copy the live herd list onto a clean page and mark who left and where they went. Movement records are the ones keepers wish they had written down.
What do people use today?
| Option | Good at | The gap |
|---|---|---|
| A paper herd book in the feed room | Works in the cold with wet gloves, needs no battery, and costs the price of a pencil. | One copy exists, nothing sorts by animal, and a treatment given last spring takes ten minutes to find. |
| A spreadsheet on the kitchen laptop | Sorts, filters, and prints, and the columns can be shaped around your own species. | Nothing gets entered in the barn, so events reach it days later or never at all. |
| Herd management software for commercial operations | Deep breeding, production, and compliance features for people whose living is the herd. | Priced and shaped for large numbers, with a setup that outlasts a small keeper's patience. |
| Photos of ear tags and syringe boxes | Captures a lot number in the moment without putting the drench gun down. | The camera roll has no idea which goat it was, and there is nothing to hand a buyer. |
What would it cost?
Free
$0
- Up to ten animals
- Breeding, treatment, and weight entries
- Printable herd record sheet
Herd
$9.99/mo
- Unlimited animals across species
- Barn entry offline, sync at the house
- Sale and vet packets you can print
- Movement history on and off the holding
Prices are proposed. Founding members lock in the lowest price if we build SmallHerd.
Questions people ask
What is a small farm livestock records system?
A small farm livestock records system is the herd book a keeper actually maintains: each animal's identity, its breeding and offspring, treatments given, weights, and every move on or off the holding. SmallHerd would be that book on a phone, plus a sheet for the barn.
Will SmallHerd tell me the withdrawal period for a wormer?
No, and it should not. Withdrawal times differ by product, species, route, and country, and the label or your vet is the only right source. SmallHerd stores the date you enter and shows it against the animal.
Does it handle chickens as well as goats and sheep?
Flocks work differently from named animals, so hens are recorded as a group with counts, moves, lay notes, and treatments. Goats, sheep, pigs, and cattle each get their own record. Most holdings have both, and one app should carry both.
Will the packet satisfy an inspector?
Record-keeping rules differ by country, state, and species, and SmallHerd does not know yours. The packet gathers what you entered into one printable document. Check the rules for your own holding and shape your entries around them.
Does it work in a barn with no signal?
Entry is local first. You add a kidding at two in the morning with no bars on the phone, and it syncs when you are back near the house. Nothing in the flow waits for a connection.
Can two people keep the same herd book?
That is what the paid plan is for. A partner, a farm sitter, or an adult child sees the same animals and adds events from their own phone, so the notebook is not stuck in one person's pocket.
Why start with a printed sheet?
Paper wins in a barn on a wet morning. The sheet on this page uses the columns the app would use, so you can start today and copy across later without rethinking your system.
When will SmallHerd launch?
There is no date. SmallHerd gets built only if enough keepers join this waitlist and say the paid plan is worth it. Joining costs nothing and the herd sheet is free regardless.
Where does this stand?
SmallHerd is a proposal, not a product. This page collects demand from search and answer engines. Askwright builds it only if enough people join the waitlist and say they would pay. Read how this works.