I still remember my family’s cattle record keeping system – the trusty shoebox method When tax time came around, out came the shoeboxes of receipts and the calculator to tally up the totals for feed and cattle purchases.

Times have certainly progressed, and things move faster these days. We need to make decisions about which cows to keep and which ones to take a closer look at – that’s where cattle software comes in. A list of last year’s expenses, a list of a cow’s lifetime history of medical records, a progeny report that shows the average weights and prices for each cow’s calves…these all can be printed in just a few clicks.

To Merle Truesdail with Truesdail Farm in Pennsylvania, using the CattleMax software (for over 4 years now) helps him maintain strict culling and gain requirements for cattle to remain in production.

He says CattleMax is  “vital in helping us maintain cow size, improve gains and prevent inbreeding”.

Read Nathan’s complete interview with Merle Truesdail

What about your record keeping? Are you looking for a better way, or do you have a system that works for you? Click on the Comments link below to share your experience.

Family and friends, keeping traditions – what a great time Christmas has been. Thank you to everyone who sent us Christmas greetings and hope you and your family had a wonderful season as well.

While looking through our articles, we wanted to highlight a few of the most popular ones.

Happy New Year!

Fenceline Weaning

Cows with Names are More Productive

Cow Costs Continue Upward

Tax court case stresses importance of record keeping

The Link Between ID and Record Keeping

Here it is nearly Christmas and most of us have a hard time believing the end of the year is almost here! And, with the end of the year, tax time is not far behind. Are you one of those who dread this time of year because it means you have to begin digging through the files to find all your information on cattle bought, sold, income, expenses, the number and kind of cattle you had in your herd at the end of the year?

In the past, I always put all that stuff off until the last minute because I just hated trying to dig out the information I had so carefully filed during the year. And, more often than not, the information is not where I was certain I filed it!

Well, there’s an answer for those problems now. My CattleMax software allows me to punch a few buttons and print out all my accountant needs for my end of year tax information.

On December 31, I can print out an inventory of my cattle herd, grouped by bulls, cows and calves. Then I can print another report showing the cattle I’ve purchased during the year, the type of animal, the date(s) purchased, price and any other information the accountant may need.

Next, I go to the Sales report and print out a record of the cattle sold during the year with all the pertinent information, including marketing costs. Then, I can print out a report of the Expenses for the cattle operation, grouped and totaled by category (feed, veterinarian, etc.) and follow that with a report of the cattle Income.

So, to gather the information needed for the accountant or tax man, rather than taking countless late night hours, I can now get the information needed in about 30 minutes or less! And, I can tell my accountant he shouldn’t charge me as much for doing my taxes since I get all the information he needs in a nice, neat few pages rather than throwing boxes of invoices, receipts and other assorted paper work on his desk!

He just laughs, says thanks and charges the same or more! But, I’m certainly relieved I have the work done early and have handed it off to him.

Have you tried a cattle management software program and does it work for you?

As we near the end of the year, cattle raisers are looking at their records to see whether or not they may end up making a profit on their operation. As they review their records, one of the items they should be considering is their “cull list.”

A farm or ranch can only support so many cows and those cows which do not contribute to the support of the farm or ranch have to be culled, if the operation is to stay in business.

One of the best ways for assisting in making that cull list is pregnancy checking. This is a quick way to identify those freeloader cows – they eat the feed, but don’t contribute to the income by producing a calf. But, a 2007 USDA survey which considered both palpation and ultrasound, found that fewer than 11% of those operations with less than 50 head did any type of pregnancy checking. But, more than 72% of those with 200 or more cows used either palpation or ultrasound for pregnancy checking.

About 67% of all operations in the U.S. calve in the spring, so fall is a great time for assessment and making that cull list. Calves have been weaned, weighed and, in most cases, sold. A good cattleman can see the “good” ones and the “dogies.” But, even good cattlemen miss the mark from time to time. “ Didn’t old #101 have a good calf last year, but this one this year doesn’t look so good?” Sometimes the old brain and/or the pencil and paper record keeping doesn’t work so well. With a good record keeping software, such as CattleMax, there’s no guess as to the production from your cows.

It’s all there in black and white – from palpation records to calving and weaning records. That makes developing the cull list and checking it twice much easier. For instance, you can determine old #101 calved early last year and raised that good calf. But, she didn’t breed back very quickly and this year’s calf was a later calf – and it really didn’t do as well.

Another consideration is the cow’s age. Without records, the memory can make that 14-year-old cow seem like she’s only 8 or 9 or so. Good records are essential in helping to make the culling decision and a cow’s age is a big factor in whether to cull or not.

You can even add notes and keep records as to body condition and disposition. A note in the cow’s record that she was hard to handle in the pens might help make the cull decision easier. Or, in this dry year, she just didn’t hustle the feed as well as others in the herd and her body condition went down.

To summarize, good records are the key to helping make that cull list and making it correctly.

How do you use your records to help cull cattle?

You’ve heard how identifying your cattle is important, and is key to good record keeping.

Dr. Ron Lemenager, Beef Cattle Specialist with the Purdue University Extension Service, recently produced a 8 1/2 minute video that provides excellent information. He describes the various identification methods, and explains how keeping accurate records can make a difference.

Watch the video Animal ID can aid record keeping

What ID methods do you use? Which do you find most helpful for your needs?

I was catching up on my online reading and came across an article at Cattle Today by John Alan Cohan, a tax attorney.  The article discusses a recent tax court ruling on a farm that has is involved in dairy, cutting horses, and dogs.

The court allowed the deductions for the dairy cattle:

The main element that helped them win this portion of the case was the fact that they had a seven-year, professionally drafted business plan. In recent years the IRS has repeatedly denied tax deductions to farmers, ranchers and horse owners who do not have a substantive business plan. In addition, the court noted with approval that the taxpayers, with regard to the cow operations, sought to reduce expenses, had a farm manager, spent a significant amount of time of their own on the farm, had a separate checking account, and focused on a competitive breed.

However, the court found against the horses and the dog operations:

The horse activity, however, was another matter, and the court ruled that this was not conducted for profit. The taxpayers showed and bred cutting horses. There was no business plan and very little by way of books of the activity other than Schedules F on their tax returns.

The court said: “Someone with the intent to make a profit from cutting horses could be expected to have adequate information from which to analyze the expenses and to project the progress of the activity. The activity was for the most part undocumented and there was little or no interest shown in the financial aspect of the activity or its prospects.”

Check out the full article at New Tax Court Case Stresses Importance of Recordkeeping

For those planning to attend the Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course, be sure to attend Wednesday morning’s business session where CPAs from a tax firm specializing in agriculture will update you on the new tax laws and answer any questions.

This past month, there was a big news article on how cattle rustling is on the rise all across the U.S. Most speculate it has to do with the economy and thieves looking to make a quick buck – at our expense.

The article said that in Texas alone, cattle rustling reports just about tripled in a one-year span from 2007 to 2008, and has continued to rise, despite efforts of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers’ rangers working along with law enforcement.

All sorts of agricultural theft is reported to be on the rise as well. In our area, we’ve had a lot of hay theft lately. Fortunately, cattle can be a little easier to track down – with the help of your cattle records.

How can cattle records help protect your herd in cases of cattle rustling?

By individually identifying cattle in your herd and keeping track of your herd inventory at all times, you might have a better chance of recovering stolen cattle. When thefts are reported quickly with easy means of identifying cattle, there is a much higher success rate for recovery.

If you keep up with how many cattle are located on your ranch, or in each pasture, you can quickly notice when you might have cattle missing, which means you can contact authorities sooner. And, if you have those cattle identified and know which ones were supposed to be in each location, you increase your chances of sale barns and authorities properly identifying your stolen cattle when they turn up at auction or in someone’s trailer.

If you’re using a cattle management software program to keep your records, you’ll most likely have access to printing reports from your records, so you can quickly generate a list of missing cattle and their identification information to distribute to authorities and nearby cattle auction facilities.

They say most stolen cattle are immediately hauled to an auction barn, sometimes in the next state, so the quicker you can get a report out on your missing cattle, and the more detailed that report is, the more cattle rustlers we’ll hopefully deter.

Has cattle rustling been on the rise in your area? Do you think your cattle records could help you recover stolen cattle?

Even today, cattle rustling is still a threat to producers. And of course, sometimes there are just fence issues that cause cattle to go “missing”.

When you keep good cattle records, including everything that could be used to identify an animal like ear tag numbers, brand, color markings, maybe even pictures, you greatly increase the chance of recovering these cattle.

In cases of theft, this identification information, and pictures if you have them, can be distributed to auction barns, so they can be on the lookout in case the stolen cattle turn up there. If you’re a member of your local cattleman’s association, information like this is a big help during their investigation.

Just recently, my family experienced a time when good identification records would come in handy. They live on the Texas Gulf Coast, which received a direct hit from Hurricane Ike in 2008. There are still fence repairs that need to be made from the storm damage.

Of course, cattle are good at finding these fence holes, and a small group of them was missing for several days in the wooded, swampy areas surrounding the pasture ground.

Luckily, the missing cattle were found, but had already been penned by a neighboring horseman, who wanted to see proof of ownership before releasing them. Now, this was fine for the registered Brahman cattle, but this neighbor did not understand that commercial cattle didn’t come with such paperwork.

This is a situation that can easily be solved by printing a cattle inventory list that includes basic identification information for each missing animal, in just minutes. While it’s not really “proof of ownership,” these records at least show you had these cattle entered in your system, and were keeping track of them, which will most likely suffice.

Not only do good cattle records affect your herd management, even the most basic records can also help in these all to common situations we face. Think about the information you might need in situations like this, and how your current cattle records might help. Do you need to make some changes?

CattleMax records every form of cattle identification available, has fields for color markings, and enables you to keep unlimited cattle pictures. It might be time to begin taking advantage of these record areas, if you’re not doing so already.