Sales, deaths and other exits
Every calf leaves the shed eventually. The paperwork at the end is easy to do poorly — and a sloppy exit record costs you accurate mortality data, accurate inventory, and (occasionally) a residue mistake at sale time.
Every calf eventually leaves the shed. Reared into the herd, sold as a vealer, sold to a heifer rearer, died, or shifted to grass and the records weren't kept up. The paperwork at the end gets less attention than it deserves — but the calf you forgot to mark "sold" three months ago is the one still in your "active calves" count, throwing off your mortality numbers and your milk-fed totals. Here's how to do it right.
The exit types
Three formal exits in Calfmate:
- Sale — calf left the farm to another farm, vealer market, or live-export.
- Death — calf died on the farm.
- Removed/transferred — calf left for any other reason (moved to a different mob you don't track, gifted, etc).
All three move the calf from the active list to history. Reports updates immediately.
How to record a sale
- Open the calf passport (Calves → tap her tag).
- Actions → Record sale.
- Sale form: date, sale type (vealer, dairy heifer, etc), buyer (optional), price (optional), notes (optional).
- Tap Record sale.
The calf is marked sold. She no longer appears in active lists, but her history stays available. The Reports → Snapshot → Sold counter increments.
The withdrawal block
Why Record sale is sometimes blocked
If the calf is inside a withdrawal period, Record sale is disabled with a clear "Cannot sell — drug withdrawal active until [date]" message. This is the residue safety net — and the single biggest reason to keep your drug library WHPs accurate (see the drug library guide).
Override: there's a tickbox "Override — this sale is not for slaughter". Use only for breeding sale, live-export to a long-quarantine market, or non-slaughter destinations. Ticking is your formal declaration; it's logged in the audit log against your name.
How to record a death
- Open the calf passport.
- Actions → Record death.
- Death form: date, suspected cause (Scour / Respiratory / Navel/Joint / Bloat / Trauma / Sudden death / Unknown / Other), post-mortem notes (optional, encouraged).
- Tap Record death.
Death is recorded. Reports → Mortality updates: deaths in period +1, cause breakdown updated, mortality % recalculated.
Why "suspected cause" matters
The cause is what the Mortality cause breakdown chart uses. After six months you'll see whether your shed's deaths are mostly scour (early), respiratory (week 3–6), navel (early), or other patterns. That pattern is where to start your prevention work.
Don't agonise. Pick your best guess. "Unknown" is fine if you genuinely don't know.
How to record other exits
Actions → Remove from farm. Free-text notes. Use for the genuinely-other cases: gifted, escaped, transferred to a mob you don't manage. It does not count as a death in Reports, and not as a sale.
The two habits that keep exit records clean
Record on the day
The calf that sold today on truck #2 should be recorded today, not at Sunday-night admin. Recording-on-the-day is the only habit that keeps Reports honest.
Record the cause, however roughly
"Suspected scour" beats "Unknown". "Sudden death — found in pen, no symptoms" beats blank. The pattern in your causes is the data that prevents future deaths.
Undoing an exit
Mistakes happen. If you marked the wrong calf as sold or recorded a death in error, contact your admin (or, if you're the admin, the calf can be restored from her history page). There's no one-click undo — exits are deliberately friction-y because they affect Reports.
Withdrawal periods after death
A dead calf in withdrawal doesn't trigger a sale block (she's not being sold), but the cause-of-death should never be related to the drug. If you suspect adverse reaction, raise it with your vet and note it on the death form.
What's not there
- No automatic NLIS or NAIT integration. Government livestock-traceability is still a manual step in your country's system.
- No automated invoice generation for sales. Price is for your records only.
- No mass-exit tool. Each calf is exited individually — by design, so you read the WHP warnings one at a time.
One thing to take away
The withdrawal block is a feature, not a bug. Don't tick the override unless the sale genuinely isn't for slaughter. That single tickbox is the difference between a clean residue record and a buyer who delists you.
Every exit, recorded properly, every time
Sale-block safety, mortality cause patterns, clean Reports. 30 days free, no card.