Reading the Reports page

"How's the calf shed going?" Ask three farmers, get three vibes. "Good." "Battling." "Fine, I think." Reports is the page that turns those vibes into actual numbers — and, more importantly, into decisions. It's also the page you open every quarter to check whether the changes you made last quarter are actually working.

Where to find it

Top nav → Reports.

Choosing a date range

Top right: range chips.

• Last 30 days — "how's the current mob going?"
• Last 90 days — "how was this calving season tracking?"
• Last 12 months — year-on-year benchmarks.
• All time — cumulative averages.

Everything below respects the chip you pick.

The six sections

1. Snapshot stats

A row of headline numbers (not range-filtered): Active calves · Need attention · Sick/critical · Sold · Deceased (all time) · Pens in use. Read this first thing each morning. Big jumps tell you what's changed overnight.

2. Growth (ADG)

Average daily gain across calves with at least two weigh-ins. Average ADG, current weight, best ADG and worst ADG (with calf IDs), number weighed.

The "best vs worst" surface is gold. Wide spread = mixed performance, probably individual issues. Narrow spread = consistent (system strength or system problem).

3. Mortality

All-time mortality %, deaths in selected period, births in period, cause breakdown.

Cause breakdown is the gold here. If 60% of deaths are respiratory, housing/ventilation is the problem, not nutrition.

4. Colostrum

Percentage of calves with colostrum recorded, average Brix, number of low-Brix events. Target: 95%+ recorded, average Brix ≥22%, low-Brix under 10%.

5. Treatments

Treatments started in period, distinct calves treated, active now, treatments by type, top drugs. Watch the ratio: a lot of antibiotic vs a lot of electrolyte tells different stories.

6. Milk fed

Daily bar chart (roughly last 30 logged days), total litres in period. Useful for sanity-checking feed plan ("4,800 L this month matches 80 calves × 6 L × 30 days — on plan").

The 5-minute weekly review

1. Open Reports, set to Last 30 days.
2. Scan Snapshot stats — anything jumped?
3. Mortality section — any new deaths? Cause column telling a story?
4. Treatments — any drug or type spike? Why?
5. Colostrum — still over 95% recorded?
6. Make one change for the week ahead based on what you saw.

Don't try to fix everything at once. One disciplined change a week compounds into a better shed by quarter-end.

The quarterly deeper read

Set to Last 90 days. Compare with the previous quarter:

• Has mortality moved?
• Has ADG moved?
• Has antibiotic use moved?
• Have you improved colostrum capture?

If you work with a vet or calf-rearing consultant, this is the page to send them. They'll spot patterns faster than you will.

Quirks worth knowing

• Reports is read-only — only as good as your data entry.
• Born-in-period numbers appear inside Mortality, not in a separate "Calving report".
• For per-calf data, open the calf passport. For exporting a calf list, use Calves → Export.
• No drug-cost report. Calfmate doesn't track $.

What's not there (yet)

• Calving ease report
• Sire performance comparison
• Weaning-weight benchmarks vs targets
• Custom date ranges (only the chips for now)

If any of those are critical for your operation, tell us — they're on the list.

One thing to take away

The point of Reports isn't to admire numbers. It's to spot the one thing in your shed that's costing you most, fix it, and check next month that the fix worked. Use the page as a tool for monthly decisions, not daily reading.