BlackCow Calf Logs
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Calf Logs

During calving season, the Logging tab is where you keep your daily records — which paddocks you checked, how many cows you saw up, and how many calves were on the ground. At the end of the season, these logs roll up into your calving records and feed the Calving report.

On this page

What calf logs are

A calf log is a daily check record — the kind of notes you'd scribble in a notebook or call in on the radio after doing your rounds. You're recording:

BlackCow stores all of these entries, so over the course of calving season you build up a day-by-day picture of how calving is progressing.

Recording a calf log entry

  1. Open the Logging tab.
  2. Tap Add Log.
  3. Select the date (defaults to today), the farm, and the paddock.
  4. Enter the cow count you observed and the calf count you saw on the ground.
  5. Add any notes in the description field — anything worth remembering.
  6. Tap Save.

You can add multiple log entries for the same day if you checked multiple paddocks — just create a separate entry for each paddock.

Log fields explained

Field What to enter
Date The date you did the check. Defaults to today.
Farm Which property this check was on.
Paddock The paddock you walked or drove through. Select from your paddock list.
Cows observed How many cows you actually counted or estimated in the mob during this check.
Calves on ground Total calves you can account for — including newborns and older calves still at foot.
Notes Anything worth recording — new calves since yesterday, a cow with a swollen leg, calves being grafted, feed condition, etc.

How logs feed into calving records and reports

Calf logs are the raw daily data. At the end of calving season, you create a Calving Record — a season summary that captures the final calf count for the year. The Calving Record is what drives the Calving percentage in Reports → Calving.

Your calf logs provide the data trail that backs up your season summary. If your calving percentage looks wrong, you can scroll back through your daily logs to find where the numbers diverged from what you were seeing on the ground.

Note The Calving report uses your confirmed calving records, not your daily logs directly. Make sure you create a calving record at the end of each season to capture your final numbers. The logs are the working notes — the calving record is the official season total.

Using voice input for calf logs

Calf logs are ideal for voice input — you can dictate a log entry while you're still on the bike or in the ute, and it'll land on the Dashboard as a voice draft waiting for your review. See Dashboard → Voice Drafts for how that works.

Tip Try to record your calf log each afternoon when the counts are fresh. Waiting until the end of the week means relying on memory — and by then, you probably can't remember whether it was 47 or 49 calves on Wednesday.