Barnyard Boss
Livestock records that do the arithmetic

Do they pay their way?

Barnyard Boss keeps what every animal has cost you — feed, vet, the day you bought them — and what they are worth now. So when it is time to decide whether to keep one or sell, the answer is a number instead of a feeling.

Cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, poultry. Works with no signal. No account required.

Cull or carryTag 0127
Accumulated cost$1,402
Worth today$1,222
Margin today−$180
Feed to spring, 8 mo−$584
Likely at sale$1,450
Sell now.

Carrying costs $356 more than they will make back. What would change the answer →

The whole idea
Nothing is profit until sale.

Every livestock app will show you what your herd is worth. Most of them are lying to you — politely, and with good intentions.

Inventory value is not money. An animal is not income until someone hands you a cheque. Until then they are a cost that keeps growing: feed, minerals, vet, the eight months of winter between now and the sale barn.

So we built the other thing. Every animal carries what they have actually cost you, from purchase or birth forward. Margin is what they are worth now, less what they have cost. That is the whole arithmetic, and we do not round it in your favour.

It means the app will sometimes tell you the animal you like is $180 under water. We think you would rather know in October than find out in May.

Three things it does that a record book cannot

01

Cost per head, not per farm

Purchase or birth, feed, vet, labour — it all builds up against the individual animal. So “this steer is $180 under water” is a real number, not a farm average. Pens and species are kept apart, because a broiler and a steer are not the same unit.

02

Decisions, not reports

Cull or carry puts sell-now beside carry-to-spring, with the feed and carry cost over the months between, a recommendation, and what would change the answer. Keep one and it books a review in 30 days, so next month's comparison runs on what actually happened.

03

Works where the work is

Fully offline. Chute mode puts the ear tag at 92 pixels so you can read it at arm's length in the sun. Outdoor mode scales everything up. Hold to talk instead of typing, with gloves on.

Say it, don't type it

“Twenty-one forty for four ton of alfalfa on lot B.”

Becomes $2,140, filed as feed, spread across Lot B — and it tells you what that did to the cost of each head before it posts anything. It knows that “twenty-one forty” is 2,140 and not 21 and 40, and it does not confuse the four ton with the money.

A farm with sixty head is not going to type them in. So it does not ask you to.

The honest bits

  • Bringing in a paper book. No paper record carries cost basis, and without it there is no margin. You get three real choices — a species average marked as an estimate, one flat figure, or no margin until sale — and none of it lands on this month's costs.
  • Working dogs never get a margin. They carry a cost per working day that spreads as overhead. Showing a profit figure for a dog would be a nonsense number, so it does not.
  • Withdrawal dates show on the sale screen, with the clear date, where you actually need them.
  • Every entry is stamped with who made it, and the export carries that column too.
  • Change something and it says so. Amended entries are marked, old weights stay in the history, and deletions tell you what they will do first.

Free to keep records. You pay for the arithmetic.

Plenty of apps will hold your records for nothing. That part is not worth money any more, so we do not charge for it. What no one else does is work out what each animal is costing you — that is the part you pay for, monthly or yearly, and only if you want it.

Tally

Free
Always, and for any number of head
A better tally book. Every animal you own, in your pocket, working with no signal — plus the Cull Calculator for one animal at a time.

Boss

$79
a year · 30-day free trial
Save $29 on the year
or $9 a month. The year pays for itself from month nine.
Everything in Tally, and it works out what each animal has actually cost you — then tells you what to do about it.

Outfit

$149
a year · not yet available
Save $43 on the year
or $16 a month, when it arrives.
Up to five people, one outfit. Everything in Boss, for when more than one person works the stock — and for deciding who gets to see the money.
Need more hands? $25 a year each, up to ten people. Past ten, talk to us.

What is in each

  TallyFree Boss$79/yr Outfit$149/yr
Keeping the record — free, and never limited
Any number of head, any species
Works with no signal, anywhere
Chute mode and outdoor mode
Hold-to-talk entry, gloves on
Weights, treatments, breeding
Withdrawal dates on the sale screen
Who entered what, on every record
Plain CSV export and your own backup file
No account, no login, nothing held hostage
Cull Calculator — one animal, numbers typed in
Doing the arithmetic — this is what you pay for
Cost basis building on every head
Margin — worth now, less what they have cost
Cull or carry — every animal, from your own records
The 30-day review after you keep one
Profit by pen and by species, kept apart
Opening basis when you bring in a paper book
Working-dog cost carried as overhead
Year-end statement for you and your accountant
More than one person — not built yet
Up to five people, one outfit — then $25 a year each, to ten
Shows a real conflict instead of picking a winner
Backup off the phone
Control over who sees the money

Nothing in the top block is ever gated, at any price. The free tier is not a trial and it does not expire — it is the whole record book, for any size herd.

Five people covers a family and a hired hand, which is most places. Beyond that, extra people are $25 a year each up to ten — and the price per person goes down, not up, as you add them. More than ten, or more than one outfit? Email us and we will sort it out. No demo, no sales call.

How the billing works

Thirty days free, then it charges — monthly or yearly, your pick, and you can switch. We will tell you a week before the trial ends and again two days before, because nobody should be surprised by a charge from us. Cancel any time in your phone's subscription settings; we never have to be involved.

Adding or dropping people. Add someone mid-year and you pay only for the months left — a sixth person added in July costs about $12.50, not $25, and your renewal date does not move. Drop someone and their seat runs to the end of the year you have already paid for, then your price goes down at renewal. You are never charged for time you did not use, and never billed twice for the same stretch.

If you stop paying, your records stay and the export stays free. Only the arithmetic switches off, and everything you had built up is waiting if you come back.

What it will not do yet

Today it runs on one phone. There is no account, no cloud, no merging between two people's phones — that is the Outfit tier and it is not built. Voice entry uses your phone's own speech recognition where it has it, and a typed field where it does not; it is not a trained farm speech model. Line-by-line detail is kept for the open month and closed months keep totals. Market prices are the ones you enter or a source you name — there is no live feed. And there is no scanning of paper books; that goes to mob entry on purpose.

We would rather you read that here than find it out later.

Free, no signup

The Cull Calculator

One animal, eight numbers, and it shows you whether keeping them beats selling this week — with every step of the arithmetic on the page. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, nothing sent anywhere.