cattle management software

Paying attention to detail in his cattle operation comes naturally to Sigifredo Garro - his "day job" is accounting! Sigi got his start in the cattle business from his late godfather, Bernardo Gomez with a present of four young Brangus bulls. "He taught me to love and enjoy what I do now," Sigi says.

Hacienda Garcon 4H is a small commercial cattle operation located in Guacimo, in the province of Limon, Costa Rica. The ranch name comes from a mix of the first three letters of Sigi's parents' last names - Garro and Contreras. The 4H stands for the number of children in the family. Hacienda Garcon 4H currently has 23 head of beef cattle, mostly Simbrah. Sigi says, "A real small operation."

Sigi has been in charge of the cattle operation since 2003, beginning with those four Brangus bulls. At that time, the cattle operation was sort of a hobby, but as time passed, Sigi's father encouraged him to take the next step and make the "hobby" a profitable business.

Splitting his time between his dad's accounting firm, giving training, conferences and lectures about audit software and the advantages of technology being applied by auditors, it was a natural fit for Sigi to consider a computer based software as a record keeping option for his operation.

"Since purchasing and beginning the use of CattleMax as my record keeping software, there's certainly been a major change in the way I keep information on the cattle business," Sigi comments. "It used to be a bunch of papers filled with notes, with barely any information to get from those papers - I had to train my memory to remember which cow was the dam of which calf, who was the sire, etc."

Relatively new to CattleMax, Sigi says he really enjoys the fact that you can manage all the cattle with just a click to the right category and a whole universe of options display for the particular category. All the information is linked to different parts of the application by one entry into CattleMax. One of the things Sigi likes about CattleMax is, when calving a cow, a query can immediately be made concerning related cattle, whether the calf is a paternal or maternal sibling, for instance.

Sigi says, "Don't be afraid of leaving paper notes or the Excel spreadsheet behind when you begin using CattleMax. As you begin to use CattleMax, you'll find what you thought was the best you could do, can be done even better through CattleMax. We must embrace technology and get the most out of it in order to achieve our strategic goals."

First learning of CattleMax through an internet search, Sigi tried several software programs for cattle record keeping, but when considering price, visual presentation, features, ease of use, CattleMax knocked all the rest out of consideration. Using the cattle worksheets, income and expense area, cattle inventory, purchase and sale reports, Sigi says those all help make his record keeping easy, even though he is just a "small operation."

As a part of a Latin American ranchers' network for information sharing, Sigi contributes tips on how to improve record keeping and animal welfare. "Whenever people ask me for recommendations, I always recommend CattleMax," he says. "I received a nice thank you from a person in Mexico to whom I'd recommended CattleMax, and he bought the software, thanking me for the tip!"

How has his small operation benefitted from the use of CattleMax? "Fixing up the mess I had with information scattered on paper sheets, avoiding replication of data, being able to fit the software to my operation, not the opposite, enabling me to get the information I needed to make a decision - all those things helped to allow me to start managing the business according to our strategy, making the right call with the information I need and want. I never thought a small cattle rancher like me could have such a powerful and flexible record keeping software in his hands, able to fit my current and future needs!"

Although there is currently not a website for Hacienda Garcon 4H, the ranch e-mail is garcon4h@gmail.com