Free herd management software · cattle record keeping

Herd management software that keeps your cattle list honest

Know what you own, where it sits, and what happened last weigh day. Cattly is free cattle management software for livestock inventory, groups, weights, and treatments. A cattle record keeping app for ranchers who quit trusting the notebook in the glovebox.

Herd snapshot

Live
Active animals 247
Groups / pens 12
Weigh-ins this month 86
Open treatments 4
Open your herd
$0

No per-head fee

Unlimited

Animals & users

CSV

Import from sheets

One list

Shared with the crew

Cattle inventory

One animal list instead of three notebooks

Most ranches do not lose money because they lack a fancy dashboard. They lose money because nobody agrees how many steers are in the east pen. Herd management software fixes that first.

Add cattle with tag, sex, breed, birth date, and status. Attach photos if you want. Print a QR profile for chute day. Import a CSV when you are moving off Excel. The goal is a list you trust when the buyer calls.

What sits on each animal record

  • Tag / ID, sex, breed, birth year
  • Status: active, sold, dead, culled
  • Group or pen assignment
  • Weight history and treatment log
  • Attachments and printable QR profile
Cattle record keeping

Cattle record keeping without the binder hunt

People searching for cattle record keeping software usually want the same thing: a place to write what happened and find it again in under a minute. That is farm record keeping for livestock, not a crop ERP.

Cattly stores ID, status, weights, vaccines, and sales on the animal. When the vet asks what you gave last spring, you open the tag instead of digging through a coffee-stained notebook. If you are still comparing free options, start with our free cattle record keeping app guide.

What to log

Purchases, births, weights, treatments, moves between pens, and sales. Skip inventing fields you will never fill.

Who can see it

Unlimited users on free. Spouse, hired hand, or kid after school can update the same livestock records without sharing a password napkin.

What you can export

CSV and PDF for lenders, breed associations, and accountants. Your cattle farm management data should leave with you if you ever switch tools.

Livestock tracking app

A livestock tracking app that works at the chute

"Livestock tracking app" searchers are not always hunting GPS collars. Most want a cattle management app on the phone: look up a tag, mark a move, log a shot before the next animal hits the headgate.

Cattly runs in the browser on phones and has mobile apps for field work. That covers herd management app use cases for cow-calf, stocker, and small feedlot crews. For map-based pasture moves, use pasture management on the same herd.

Phone jobs that matter

  • Find an animal by tag during sorting
  • Add a weight after the scale settles
  • Log a vaccine with withdrawal in mind
  • Move a group from pen A to pen B
Features

Herd management software features ranchers actually use

Feature pages love long checklists. Here is the short version for free livestock management software that stays useful after week one.

Feature In Cattly Why it matters
Cattle inventory & status Yes, unlimited Know active vs sold vs dead without a second list
Pens / flocks / groups Yes Livestock tracking by how you sort
Weights & ADG path Yes + free calculator See who is earning their feed
Health & withdrawal history Yes Ship with a record, not a guess
CSV import / export Yes Leave Excel without starting from zero
Multi-user free plan Yes Crew updates the same herd management app
Breeding / calving Same login Via cow-calf software
Per-head fees $0 Free for cattle farms that grow

Cattle farm software for the outfits we see most

Cattle farm management software searches cover everything from a backyard pair of bottle calves to a commercial yard. Cattly is built for cattle-first work. Small farms and homesteads are welcome; the free tier does not nick you for staying under 50 head.

Cow-calf & stocker

Keep cows, calves, and yearlings on one list. Use groups for breeding lots and grass turns. When calving season hits, open cow-calf tools without migrating data.

Small feedlot / finishing

Pen groups, weigh days, and treatment logs before ship. Pair with the FCR calculator and break-even tool when you price a load.

Small farm & homestead

Looking for a farm management app for a small farm or homestead cattle? You still need tags, shots, and a sale date. Cattly does not force enterprise pricing on a ten-head place.

Dairy + beef mix

Milking cows stay on the same inventory. Milk weights and lactations live in dairy management; dry cows and heifers still show in the herd list.

Group examples that match real sorts

North pasture cows 62
Heifer development 28
Feedlot pen 3 94
Sale barn candidates 11
Pens & flocks

Group cattle the way you already sort them

Whiteboards lie after the second move of the week. In Cattly you create groups for pens, pastures, or sale lots and move animals when you sort. Head counts stay attached to the group, not to someone's memory.

Running rotational grazing? Pair groups with pasture management so the flock and the paddock stay in sync.

Performance & health

Weights and treatments on the same animal

Inventory without weights is a head count. Inventory with weigh-ins tells you who is paying the feed bill. Log batch or individual weights, then check average daily gain when you want the math without a spreadsheet.

Weight tracking

Record chute weights with dates. Pull history per animal or pen. Use the cattle weight tracking guide if you are still deciding how often to weigh.

Treatments & withdrawals

Log vaccines and meds on the animal. Before a sale, check withdrawal status so you do not ship too early. Practice with the withdrawal time calculator and keep longer history in Cattly.

Setup

How to get herd management software working in one afternoon

You do not need a six-month software project. Load active cattle, make a few groups, and start logging from the next chore day.

  1. 1. Create your farm and add animals

    Sign up, name the farm, then add cattle one by one or import a CSV. Tag, sex, breed, birth date, and status are enough to start.

  2. 2. Group animals the way you work

    Pens, pastures, breeding lots, sale lots. Move animals between groups when you sort instead of rewriting a paper list.

  3. 3. Log weights and treatments as they happen

    Batch weigh-ins and health events stick to the animal. That is how you get ADG later and a clean treatment history before shipping.

  4. 4. Print IDs and run inventory when you need a count

    QR profiles help at the chute. Inventory by status or group covers insurance, lenders, and sale barn paperwork.

  5. 5. Add breeding, pasture, and money when you are ready

    Use cow-calf software for breeding season, pasture tools for rotations, and farm tax reporting when sales and expenses need Schedule F categories. Same herd.

Herd management vs paper, Excel, and paid livestock apps

Spreadsheets work until two people edit different copies. Generic farm apps bury cattle under crop fields. Paid livestock management software often looks fine until the per-head invoice arrives. Cattly keeps cattle inventory in the center, then layers breeding, feed, and taxes when you need them.

Need Paper / Excel Typical paid apps Cattly
Shared live inventory Usually one person's file Yes, on a paid seat Crew sees the same list, free
Group moves after sorts Rewrite the sheet Often yes Move animals between groups
Weight + treatment history Separate tabs, easy to miss Common on higher tiers On the animal record
Head limits None (until chaos) Free tiers often cap at 50 Unlimited
Cost at scale "Free" until bad data costs you Monthly or per head $0, unlimited head

For a wider free-app comparison, see free cattle record keeping apps and our FarmKeep alternative write-up.

Tools that sit next to your herd list

Free calculators for the numbers you still want to check by hand, plus the product pages for breeding and grass.

Sources & notes

Official animal identification and disease-traceability rules vary by country and change over time. US producers should confirm current requirements with USDA APHIS livestock traceability and follow Beef Quality Assurance guidance for treatment records. Cattly helps you store what you did; it is not legal or veterinary advice.

Page maintained by the Cattly team. Product behavior matches the live cattle inventory, groups, weights, and health modules in the Cattly app.

FAQ

Herd management software FAQ

Answers for people comparing herd management apps, cattle record keeping tools, and free livestock management software.

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