cattle management software

The persistent winter drought in Texas was felt deeply by some cattlemen, but those like Ken Lyon of Lyon Brangus Ranch are not discouraged.

Lyon has been involved in the cattle business for the past nine years, but when it came time to sell cattle due to dry conditions on his 160 acres in Yantis, Texas, he utilized the CattleMax software to decide which animals he needed to cull.

Lyon currently runs 58 head of Brangus cattle, all commercial heifers bred to registered bulls. He sells some cattle through private treaty marketing, and sends steers to his local auction barn.

Lyon is beginning his sixth year with CattleMax, and found the program to be beneficial during his time of need. Last year, his herd totaled 100 head, but he was forced to sell 50 following the drought.

"CattleMax allows you to quickly identify what cattle are being productive or not," he said, "It was easy when I had to sell. I ran a report on cow productivity, and made my first cut."

He normally uses CattleMax for general record keeping-to keep track of his herd, including vaccinations and productivity.

He said that before CattleMax, he used to hand write updates for his records and stick them on his refrigerator. He then moved to an Excel spreadsheet, and has now upgraded to the new CattleMax version.

"I am a retired data processing consultant," Lyon said, "so I have worked with a lot of computer systems. This [CattleMax] is one of the best that I've seen. Everything works well, and I've been really pleased with it."

Lyon said that he uses the cow-calf report most often, and has developed many custom reports that usually pertain to cow-calf records. He said CattleMax was particularly helpful in its capabilities to track calves to cows.

When Lyon sells his cattle through private treaty, he always includes medical records, date of birth and the sire's registration number.

"When kids go buy something, they don't always know what they're getting," he said, "With me, they have dates of vaccinations and what they were doing, and records on the sire and dam. People have responded well to that."

He realized the potential CattleMax held as a marketing agent when he was able to sell a calf through the Internet using pictures of the sire, dam and calf and the medical records that are included in the software program.

Lyon has also demonstrated and sold CattleMax to other ranchers following his experiences with the program.

With slight setbacks from drought, Lyon Brangus Ranch is once again growing and ready to market quality cattle with the help of CattleMax.

In the fall of 2007, Ken became one of the CattleMax customer service representative team members. Talk about believing in CattleMax and the company behind the software! Ken (and our other customer service representatives) are ready and willing to help you succeed with CattleMax.