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What to record in Farmeter Buff across a buffalo farm's year

Follow one made-up buffalo farm through a year in Farmeter Buff, from calving and heat checks to weighing, weaning and sales, to see when each record matters.

Beginner11 min read

On this page
  1. Setting the scene
  2. Calving season
  3. After calving: watching for heat
  4. Pregnancy checks and the due date
  5. Weighing days
  6. Health and vaccinations
  7. Weaning and selling
  8. End-of-year review
  9. What the year teaches

Most app guides explain one screen at a time. That's useful when you already know what you want to do, but it doesn't tell a new user when each screen matters. A buffalo farm doesn't live screen by screen. It lives by the year: calves arrive, mothers come back into heat, someone checks who is pregnant, the young stock get weighed, animals are sold, and then it all comes round again.

So this post does something different. It follows one imaginary farm through one year in Farmeter Buff, Farmeral Technology's buffalo farm app, and stops at each moment where a record or a reminder earns its place. Each chapter ends with a short In the app box: the buttons to press, named as they appear in the app (English first, Thai in brackets).

The year starts with a calf at its mother's side. Recorded from her, the calf keeps the link to its mother, and the pedigree is built from links like this.

Setting the scene

This farm is made up. It's a small family buffalo farm invented for this post. There are no real animals, farms or figures here. Where a number appears, it is either a setting in the app or comes from a linked source.

Our imaginary farm has a few breeding cows, a bull, and a handful of young animals. Three people work on it. One parent owns the farm. The other parent and a grown-up child help with the daily work and the records.

In Farmeter Buff, that maps onto the app's team features. Farmeral describes roles and access rights for each team member, and the plan table on the same page lists how many members each plan allows. When people sign up, they choose to be a Farm owner or a Farm worker / veterinarian / researcher. The owner creates the farm and invites the others. That matters later in the year, because some records (money, for example) are the owner's job.

Two promises before we start. First, no invented numbers: I won't tell you how many calves this farm had or what it earned. Second, the months are a storytelling device. Buffalo can breed all year round, though a review in Animal Reproduction Science notes that many countries see a seasonal pattern of ovarian activity, which in the tropics is put down to rainfall and the feed it brings (Perera, 2011). Your farm's year will have its own shape.

One illustrative farm year. As the pointer passes each record it lights up, then fades: every record has its moment. Rain falls only in the wet-season months.

The rain on that wheel marks the southwest monsoon. Thailand's Land Development Department says it usually starts in mid-May and ends in mid-October. I've put it there as a calendar landmark, not as farming advice.

Calving season

Our story opens with calves. In the first weeks of the year, a few cows on the imaginary farm give birth.

This is the record that everything else hangs on. When a calf is recorded from its mother's breeding record, the app opens the new calf's form with the breeding record already attached and locked. The mother is filled in for you, and with a natural mating the sire comes along too. You add the calf's own details, such as its tag and sex.

Why bother doing it this way instead of adding the calf as a new animal from scratch? Because the link to its parents is what the pedigree, the life timeline and the herd charts are built from. A calf entered without its mother is just a calf. A calf entered from its mother's record carries its family with it.

Recording the birth also starts the calf's own clock. Farmeter works out reminders from birth dates: weighing at set ages, and weaning later on (more on both below). The app also has a setting for Animal status change notifications (แจ้งเตือนการเปลี่ยนแปลงสถานะของสัตว์), which it describes as covering changes "such as calving or life stage".

In the app

  • Record (จดบันทึก) → Reproduction (การสืบพันธุ์) → Reproductive cycle (วงจรการสืบพันธุ์), pick the mother.
  • Go to the Birth step, choose the outcome and the Birth date (วันที่คลอด), then Create offspring (สร้างลูก).
  • Fill in the calf's form and save. The breeding record is already attached.

After calving: watching for heat

A few weeks after calving, attention turns back to the mothers. The question now is: when will she be ready to breed again?

Buffalo don't make this easy. The same review says the average oestrous cycle is 21 days but varies more than in cattle, the signs of heat are less obvious than in cattle, and heat lasts 5 to 27 hours. Under optimal conditions, swamp buffalo that suckle their calves freely start cycling again 60 to 90 days after calving, and in many farming systems a long gap after calving is a major problem (Perera, 2011). A short, quiet heat is easy to miss if nobody is looking.

This is where reminders help. In Farmeter's reminder system, a heat check after calving (ตรวจสัดหลังคลอด) is due 21 days after the calving date, and a heat check after a failed mating (ตรวจสัดหลังผสมไม่ติด) is due 21 days after a "not pregnant" result is recorded. There is also a heat check for heifers (ตรวจสัดกระบือสาว). Treat the postpartum reminder as "start watching her now", not as a promise that she'll be in heat that day.

When someone does see heat, the date goes into the breeding entry. Then comes the mating itself: the date, the method (artificial insemination or natural mating), and for AI the semen and the AI technician, or for natural mating the sire. The app won't save an AI mating without a semen record, or a natural mating without a sire. That's what lets the next calf's father be known.

The heat check after calving counts 21 days from the calving date, then lands in Notifications as a cue to start watching her, not a promise that she is in heat that day.

In the app

  • Reminders land in Notifications (การแจ้งเตือน). In-app notifications are in every plan; alerts from the LINE assistant เจ้าบุญมี are listed from the Growth plan up (plans).
  • In the reproduction record, enter the Estrus date (วันที่เป็นสัด), then the mating: date, method, semen and AI technician (นักผสมเทียม), or sire.
  • In the cycle history, these show up as Record heat (บันทึกการเป็นสัด) and Record breeding (บันทึกการผสมพันธุ์).

Pregnancy checks and the due date

After a mating, the cow's status becomes Awaiting pregnancy check (รอตรวจท้อง). Farmeter's pregnancy-check reminder starts 21 days after the mating date and repeats daily, up to seven times, until a check is recorded. When the check is done, you enter the date, the result (Pregnant, Not pregnant or Unclear) and who did the check.

The result decides what happens next. "Not pregnant" opens a new breeding attempt in the same cycle, and the heat check after a failed mating takes over. "Unclear" lets you add another check later, instead of guessing.

"Pregnant" is the one everyone hopes for. Once a pregnancy is confirmed, the app's due date reminder (กำหนดคลอด) is set for 330 days after the mating date, and pregnant animals show how many days they have been pregnant and a due date once the system has one.

This is also a good moment to look at the herd as a whole. In Analytics (การวิเคราะห์), the chart Buffalo herd structure by age and sex (โครงสร้างฝูงกระบือตามอายุและเพศ) shows how many males and females you have in each age group. On our imaginary farm, it answers a simple planning question: how many young females are coming up behind the current breeding cows?

In the app

  • Open the cow's reproduction record and tap Add pregnancy check (เพิ่มการตรวจท้อง).
  • Enter the check date, the result and the Pregnancy examiner (ผู้ตรวจท้อง), review, confirm.
  • Check Analytics → the herd structure chart, to see the age and sex mix.

Weighing days

As the year moves on, the calves from the start of the story grow. Farmeter asks for growth measurements at set ages from birth: 240, 400, 600 and 720 days, with a newborn option too. For each animal with a birth date, the app creates a measurement reminder at each of those ages. The reminder stays open for a short window around the target age, and recording a measurement inside that window marks it done.

A growth record can hold weight, heart girth, body length and height. Record what you measured that day. On the recording screen, you can choose the age (for example, 240 days) instead of one calendar date. The app then works out each animal's record date from its own birth date, and it won't let you record a 600-day weight for a calf that isn't 600 days old yet.

Why such fixed ages? Because they make comparisons fair. If the farm belongs to a cooperative, the Scoreboard (กระดานคะแนน) compares average buffalo weight at those same ages. It has two tabs, Co-op farms and By area, and farms outside your co-op show only rank and average, not their names. Rankings aren't in the Free plan; the plan page lists the provincial Scoreboard from the Standard plan up (plans).

In the app

  • Record → Growth (การเจริญเติบโต) → choose all animals, one herd, or animals one by one.
  • Pick the age button or a date, enter values animal by animal, then Confirm and submit (ยืนยันและส่ง).
  • Later, open Analytics → Growth trend (แนวโน้มการเจริญเติบโต), and the Scoreboard if your farm is in a co-op.

Health and vaccinations

Somewhere in the year, the vet comes, or the farm vaccinates on a programme the vet has set. Which vaccines buffalo need, and when, is a question for your vet and the Department of Livestock Development (กรมปศุสัตว์). This post doesn't give a schedule, because it can't give one that's right for your farm.

What the app does is remember what was given, to whom and when. Each farm keeps its own vaccine catalog (คลังวัคซีน): you add a vaccine once by name, and from then on you pick it from the list. Recording a round means choosing the vaccine, the Vaccination date (วันที่ฉีดวัคซีน) and the animals. Each animal's Vaccination history (ประวัติวัคซีน) then shows what it received. Health records for disease, symptoms and treatment sit right next to it.

At the herd level, Analytics has views such as Vaccinated buffalo and Vaccination coverage by herd (ความครอบคลุมวัคซีนตามฝูง). After a vaccination day, they're the quickest way to spot a group that got missed.

In the app

  • Record → Health (สุขภาพ) → Vaccine (วัคซีน).
  • First time only: Manage vaccine catalog (จัดการคลังวัคซีน) → Add vaccine (เพิ่มวัคซีน).
  • Select vaccine, set the date, choose the animals, save.

Weaning and selling

Back to the calves from the start of the year. Farmeter's weaning reminder (หย่านม) is set 270 days after the calf's birth date. When the calf is weaned, you record it under Growth. The app lists calves on the farm that haven't been weaned yet, you pick the calf and the Weaning date (วันที่หย่านม), and it gets a Weaned (หย่านมแล้ว) badge. The app won't accept a weaning date before the calf's birth or after today.

An animal's timeline in Farmeter Buff: birth, measurements, weaning 270 days after birth, moving up to young stock, and a first pregnancy
Screenshot: Farmeral Technology

The screenshot above shows an animal's Timeline (ไทม์ไลน์), where birth, measurements, weaning and pregnancies line up in order. It's a good place to see a whole year at a glance for one animal. On the plan page, the Timeline is listed from the Growth plan up (plans).

Then, on our imaginary farm, a few young animals are sold. Two records go with a sale.

  1. The animal's status. On the animal's page, you change its presence status from Present on farm (มีอยู่ในฟาร์ม) to Sold (ขายแล้ว), with a date and an optional note. Sold, dead and missing animals count as inactive, so they don't use up your plan's active-animal quota. Their history is kept, so you can still look them up later. If you set the wrong status, a sold or missing animal can be set back to active, within your plan's limits. A Dead status is stricter: after 48 hours it can no longer be changed back to active.
  2. The money. Open Finance (การเงิน) from the home screen's Quick menu, tap Record income (บันทึกรายรับ), and choose an income type such as Buffalo sale (male), Buffalo sale (female) or Calf sale. Income and expense recording arrived in version 1.2.0, according to the App Store release notes. In the version checked for this series, saving money records is reserved for the farm owner, so on our farm that's the owner's job.

In the app

  • Record → Growth → Weaned (หย่านม), pick the calf and the date.
  • Animal page → presence status → Sold, date, note, Save.
  • Quick menu → Finance → Record income.

End-of-year review

The year comes round. Before the next calving season, our imaginary family sits down with the app for half an hour.

Analytics lets you pick a date range (one year works well here) and switch between Overview, Growth, Breeding, Health, Operations and Finance. Farmeral describes the analytics as real-time analysis on the farm dashboard (Farmeter Buff). A few views are worth a look at the end of a year:

Question Where to look
How is the herd made up now? Overview: totals, male/female ratio, age ranges
Did the calves grow as hoped? Growth: trend charts and the box plot by recorded age
How many matings did pregnancies take? Breeding: services until pregnancy, AI vs natural mating
Did anyone miss a vaccination? Health: vaccination coverage by herd
Did the year pay? Finance: monthly income and expense, net profit, cumulative balance, cost per head
The Analytics overview in Farmeter Buff with a one-year date range, herd totals, and charts of the male/female ratio and age ranges
Screenshot: Farmeral Technology

For animals being sold as breeding stock, the pedigree matters. On the plan page, viewing pedigrees is listed from the Growth plan up, and generating a pedigree certificate is a paid add-on priced per certificate (plans). The pedigree is only as good as the parent links recorded at calving, which is why that first chapter mattered so much.

Finally, a short list for next year:

  • Check birth dates. Weighing and weaning reminders run from them, so an animal without a birth date gets no reminders.
  • Tidy the vaccine catalog before the first vaccination day.
  • Look over the team. People change. Make sure everyone who records has access, and nobody has access who shouldn't.
  • Read your own record history. The Google Play listing mentions seeing when data was recorded and who changed it. Gaps in the history are next year's habits to fix.

What the year teaches

None of these records is hard on its own. Each one takes a minute or two. What makes them worth it is the order: a calf recorded from its mother gives you a pedigree, a heat date gives a mating a reference point, a pregnancy check gives you a due date, and a birth date gives you weighing and weaning reminders. Across a year, small records add up to a farm you can actually see.

Sources

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