Adding drugs to the library
Every drug on your farm has the same boring details — name, dose, duration, withdrawal — and you don't want to type them in every time. Set them once. From then on, the whole app autofills correctly.
The biggest payoff in setting up the drug library properly is withdrawal periods. Get the WHP right in the library and Calfmate uses it everywhere — across task protocols, treatment protocols, and ad-hoc treatments. No more mental maths at sale time. No more accidentally selling a calf inside withdrawal because someone typed in three days when it should have been twenty-one.
Who can do this
Admins only.
Where to find it
Top nav → Treatments → Drug library. Or directly: /treatment/drugs.
What the library actually is
A list of drug templates. Each row stores the drug's typical use on your farm — not a stock count. Calfmate's drug library is "defaults for filling out forms", not inventory management.
That's deliberate. Most farms manage stock on a clipboard or in a spreadsheet, and adding stock tracking to the app would be one of those features that's only as good as the last person who updated it (which is usually three weeks ago).
Define a drug — field by field
- Name (required) — the brand or generic name as you'd say it in the shed.
- Default type — Electrolyte / Antibiotic / Medication / Vaccine / Other. Drives the colour coding and grouping on the Treatments page.
- Default dose — free text. "2 ml", "1 ml / 10 kg", "10 mg/kg IV q12h".
- Default duration (days) — typical course length. 1–60.
- Default withdrawal (days) — meat WHP from the label. 0–365. The big one.
- Description (optional) — usage notes, "ask vet first", storage.
A typical calf-shed library
Don't copy these blindly — verify withdrawal periods against your country's label and your vet's prescription. But the shape:
Example starter set
- Halocur — Medication, 2 ml, 7 days course, 0 days WHP.
- Excede (ceftiofur) — Antibiotic, as labelled, 1 day, ~8 days WHP.
- Resflor — Antibiotic, 6 ml/45 kg, 1 day, ~42 days WHP.
- Bovilis 7in1 — Vaccine, 2 ml SC, 1 day, ~21 days WHP.
- Metacam — Medication, 0.5 ml/10 kg, 1 day, ~15 days WHP.
- Lignocaine 2% — Medication, 2 ml per bud, 1 day, 0 days.
- Vytrate electrolyte — Electrolyte, 100 g / 2 L, 3 days, 0 days.
WHPs vary by country (Australia, NZ, US, EU). Always cross-check the bottle and the APVMA / EMA / FDA database for your region.
How the library feeds the rest of the app
Once a drug is in the library, it appears in three places:
- Start treatment → "From library" dropdown. Picking the drug autofills dose, duration, withdrawal.
- Treatment protocols → drug rows on a saved regimen. Same autofill.
- Task protocols → drug components on a vaccine task. Format "Drug Name | withdrawal_days" pulls from the library.
Disabling vs deleting
- Disable — hides the drug from new treatments but keeps every historical dose intact. Use when you stop using a drug but don't want to lose the audit trail.
- There is no hard delete. Disable is the safe equivalent.
Inactive drugs don't appear in the Start treatment picker.
Four tips worth a coffee
- Build the library on day one with your top 8–12 drugs. Add new ones as they come up.
- Get withdrawal periods right. If your vet prescribes a different WHP for off-label use, create a new entry rather than editing the standard one (e.g. "Metacam (high dose)" alongside "Metacam").
- Type the brand name first if that's what's on the bottle ("Bovilis 7in1" not "7-in-1 vaccine"). Searching's faster.
- The library is shared across the farm. Change a default and it flows through to the next treatment; historical doses keep their original numbers.
What's not there
- No stock quantity, batch number, or expiry date tracking. This is a defaults library, not an inventory system.
- No automatic WHP updates when regulations change. You set it, it stays.
One thing to take away
The Drug library is the single most leveraged piece of admin in Calfmate. 20 minutes of setup saves you time on every treatment forever, and prevents the withdrawal mistakes that turn into real money at sale time.
20 minutes upfront. Hours saved every month.
Get your library set up — withdrawal periods autofill across the whole app. 30 days free, no card.