cattle management software

Alan and Leslie Alexander have carried on their family's ranching heritage and legacy of quality Charolais cattle with Hang'n A Cattle Company. The Alexanders run approximately 100 head of cattle, with spring and fall calf crops, on their ranch overlooking the Columbia River in Pasco, WA.

Alan dedicates all of his time to the ranch, and Leslie has divided her priorities between helping with the cattle, advising youth involved in the Northwest Junior Charolais Association, and managing the Livestock Identification Program for the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

With nearly 40 years of experience raising Charolais cattle, and six years of record keeping with the CattleMax software, Hang'n A enjoys the benefits of recording and analyzing information.

"The biggest challenge to our operation is the declining availability of summer pasture. Each year, more land has been pulled out of production," Leslie said.

Declining grazing land has required Hang'n A to use thier records to make valuable management decisions.

She said, "With less grass to work with, we're constantly evaluating our cow herd to make sure each female is pulling her weight and returning the most value for the resources available."

Leslie said CattleMax has brought ease into her record keeping.

"The program has many excellent features, but our favorite would have to be the ease in which you can correct your data entry mistakes," she said, "It's very user friendly and simple to use."

The reports in CattleMax have been especially helpful for Hang'n A in managing their breeding cows.

"We print calving worksheets, look up expected calving dates based on AI or natural service and use the pasture inventory as a 'show list' for prospective buyers," she said, "Each report has the run date printed at the bottom so it's easy to compare the same report printed."

Leslie said they found CattleMax by searching online for a record keeping program.

"We were the original paper and pencil outfit to start with," she said, "We moved to spreadsheets on our PC and then went through several 'boxed' programs before we found CattleMax."

After their experience converting cattle records and getting started with a software program, Leslie suggested that new users get their records in order and in one place before they ever start entering data.

"For any cattle software system to be effective [for evaluation and reports], there are three basic pieces of information you'll need: individual identification of the animals in the herd, dates of individual events and weights," she said.

Hang'n A has also received benefits through customers appreciating their detailed records.

"Our customers are impressed with the volume of information we have on our herd and how easy it is to access with just a click of the mouse," Leslie said, "This will always lead to the question, 'What program are you using?'"

Overall, CattleMax has helped Alan and Leslie to make important decisions regarding their cattle herd, especially with grazing concerns in their area.

"Pasture grass is worth its weight in gold in our area," she said, "By tracking the performance of our calf crops over the years we've been able to identify and cull the cows and bloodlines that 'waste' the high-priced feed by raising lighter weight calves."

For more information on Charolais cattle available at Hang’n A Cattle Co., visit them online at www.charolaisnw.com.