cattle management software

Established in 1877 and located 30 miles northwest of San Angelo near the town of Water Valley, T-Star Ranch is comprised of 16,000 total acres. Cattle operations on the ranch started about 70 years ago and the ranch currently raises sheep, goats and cattle.

Tim Turner, DVM, is the operator of T-Star Ranch, along with owning Southwestern Livestock Mineral Co. in San Angelo. The ranch is owned by 8 different family members. Daughter Amanda Turner Horak assists in the operation and record keeping for the ranch and is also owner of Horak Equine, a user of EquineMax horse record keeping software (another product of Cattlesoft, Inc).

Located in the semi-arid region of Texas, T-Star Ranch has ups and downs in the numbers of cattle, sheep and goats able to be supported by the ranch, according to the rainfall. Several years ago, the ranch had to sell off all their cattle due to an extreme drought. Now the ranch is trying to increase their herd size and recover from the loss of their herd. Presently, T-Star is running some less that 200 head of cattle. The ranch keeps approximately 30 head of replacement heifers each year and buys some first calf heifers from time to time in an attempt to rebuild their herd.

T-Star Ranch first began using CattleMax record keeping software in 2009. Their advice to new users of the software is to take the time initially to set up the records properly and then take 30 minutes every week to update the cattle records. "Being able to look at cows individually for any information and find their location quickly and easily is my favorite feature of CattleMax," Amanda says. With the pastures being scattered over a wide area, "I keep a copy of the Cattle Inventory by Pasture report with me at all times. But, we also use many of the other reports available in CattleMax frequently."

First learning about CattleMax at the Texas A&M University Beef Cattle Short Course, the transition from paper records and the notes section of a Palm Pilot was a big step for T-Star Ranch. Since moving to CattleMax for their record keeping, the software has helped the ranchers see which cattle are more profitable, as well as keeping track of the age of their cows.

CattleMax certainly helps in making better management decisions for each cow and not wasting money on unproductive individuals, according to Horak. "It also makes it easy for us to look up what we sold calves for last year as opposed to this year. That helps us see what we can do to increase our calf check in terms of marketing," Amanda comments.

Tim and Amanda say CattleMax has made it easy to see all their cattle related information in one place and keep up with record management quickly and easily. They recommend CattleMax record keeping system to other cow-calf operators frequently as a help to profitability in their operation.