Anyone use Farmbrite?

misfitmorgan

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Does anyone on here use Farmbrite? If so how do you like it, anything to find it lacking? Can anyone suggest any other management system similar that has RFID capabilities and is not thousands of dollars to start using? I really like how gallagher TSI works but at $7k for the RFID reader and TSI tablet it is not exactly a small-scale start-up sort of option.
 

Baymule

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Nope, don't use it or any other type of intelligent record keeping system. I use the old paper and pen scribble and manage to come up with some form of papers to take to the CPA for taxes purposes. If you do this Farmbrite, please start a thread on it to enlighten us old dinosaurs.
 

misfitmorgan

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Nope, don't use it or any other type of intelligent record keeping system. I use the old paper and pen scribble and manage to come up with some form of papers to take to the CPA for taxes purposes. If you do this Farmbrite, please start a thread on it to enlighten us old dinosaurs.
I will be happy to Bay. I'm interested in it because it keeps everything, animals, breeding, birthing, weaning, weighing, feed, pasture, feed, tax stuff, literally anything you could want and you click a button for reports instead of pouring over multiple spreadsheets like I normally do. Even my spreadsheets only have feed, lambing and deaths. No other data to see who needs to be culled. If I want to go commercial and have 50 ewes that system is not gonna work. I dont have hours and hours to manually type it in or sort thru the info.

Forgot to mention....best part is you can hook an RFID reader to it. So you put in an activity like CDT then just scan everyone you do CDT for and it puts it into each animals records. Similarly for lamb weights to see growth, you can use a scale with an RFID reader on it and it will scan each animal as the weights come across then put it in the farmbrite system automatically.
 

misfitmorgan

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I am excited about it. To use the RFID part is is like $95/month though. But the entry tier which would work for most any hobby/backyard farm is $15/month so pretty cost effective. I'm still not set on what program to use. I really like the look of the galagher but that price tag :barnie

Bascially I could use this farmbrite for 6yrs and still cost me less then the gallagher, the other side of it is the galagher is a one time price then it is your forever. You do not get any of the upgrades though, this is galaghers second model for the pad and reader so I am sure they will have newer versions in those 6yrs. I'm still researching other possibilities. No matter what I pick the RFID reader is not gonna be cheap. I could go without it but again 50 ewes and potentially 100+ lambs a year there is no way I can keep track of that in my current system with any kind of efficiancy. Even at that scale knowing exactly which ewes are not performing well or which lambs to ship and when is pretty crucial.
 

Margali

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You might be able to use an barcode ear tag with the Farmbrite app for bulk animal activities. I can't be sure from website description. Waterproof barcode labels are easy to print and roll of tape isn't expensive.
 

misfitmorgan

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That is an idea. We are required to use RFID tags for cows though and we use scrapie tags for sheep and goats. They are saying we will be required to use RFID for sheep as well within the next 10 years so not sure how I would do barcode tags as well or how one would keep the barcode readable. I know some of the RFID tags come with barcodes, so maybe we could do barcodes then get the RFID reader later. Thank you for the suggestion.
 

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