HERDBOOK.
CATTLE RECORD KEEPING FOR SMALL RANCHES
Every cow. Everything you know about her.
Keep photos, calves, lineage, breeding, vaccinations and pasture history together in one simple profile you can pull up from the field.
Free for 14 days. No credit card. No commitment.
JELLY
Heifer · Red Brahman · Tag JELLY
"The cow is in the pasture. Her vaccine record is in a notebook. Her calf pictures are on your phone. Her pedigree is somewhere else — and your dad remembers which bull she was with."
FOR RANCHERS RUNNING ~25 TO 250 HEAD
THE PROBLEM
You already keep records. They're just everywhere.
Memory, a calving notebook, an Excel file, registration papers, the camera roll, texts between family. Those systems work — until the herd grows, the generation changes, or somebody else needs to know what you know. HerdBook gives all of it one place to live.
MEET JELLY
One cow. One page. Everything on her.
Jelly is a red Brahman heifer on our ranch in Bellville, Texas. Her profile is a real, live HerdBook page — photos, breed, birth date, lineage, health history and notes, exactly as a buyer or a family member would see it.
And she's not the only one. Tap any animal below to see what lives on a profile — cows, calves, bulls and heifers all get the same page.
127
Cow · Brahman · Tag 127
ROMEO
Bull · Braford · Tag B-04
RED
Heifer · Red Brahman · Tag 204
THE THESIS
A profile, not a row.
Your herd isn't a spreadsheet. You already know your cattle as individuals — names, personalities, who's mothering who. Your records should too.
See where she came from — and what she's produced.
Dam, sire, and every calf, linked both directions. Tap into her mother and you're on her mother's page. Off-ranch pedigrees can be typed in from the paperwork.
Know what she's had and when.
Vaccinations, treatments, and weights, dated and attached to the animal for life. Run a whole pasture through the chute and log the round in one pass.
Remember where she's been and who she's been with.
Every pasture move is logged with a date, so "which bull was she with last spring" is a tap instead of a memory test.
Pull her up standing in the pasture.
Works in any phone browser — no app to install, iPhone photos included. Offline capture is coming; today HerdBook needs a connection to save.
Photos that do the remembering.
Add photos as you take them. The camera date comes along, so the picture lands on the right day in her history.
Notes and paperwork in the same place.
Registration papers, bills of sale, vet records and the half-thought you had at the gate — all on her page instead of in a folder somewhere.
WHY HERDBOOK
Built for the rancher who knows the cows — not just the numbers.
Some operations need heavy software: contract grazing, feedlot analytics, thousand-head reporting. That's a real need, and it isn't this. HerdBook is intentionally simpler — the place you go to answer the questions that come up in the pasture.
Whose calf is that?
Who was she bred to?
When did we vaccinate her?
What did her last calf look like?
Which pasture was she in?
What do I need to send the buyer?
SELLING
When you sell the animal, send the history with her.
Every animal has a share link. Send a buyer her photos, her lineage, her vaccination history and her papers — one page, no attachments, nothing to dig up. The records you've already kept become how you show what you're selling.
FAMILY & CREW
Because one person shouldn't have to remember everything.
Invite your spouse, your kids, your parents, your ranch hand. Everybody works from the same animal record, so what one person knows doesn't stay in one person's head — or one person's phone. No charge per seat.
GETTING STARTED
Already have a spreadsheet? Send it to us.
You don't have to type in your herd. Email your spreadsheet, your calving list, whatever you've got, and we'll help get your first herd into HerdBook and matched up — dams, sires, and all. Done by a person, not a wizard you have to fight.
CAREY
Creator · Herdbook
ORIGIN
Built on a working cattle ranch.
Our cattle records lived in notebooks, a spreadsheet, registration paperwork, three phones, and people's memories. I wanted to pull up one cow and see everything we knew about her — in the pasture, in the moment.
Big ranch software was more than we needed. The spreadsheet couldn't carry everything that mattered. And the notebook was usually somewhere else when we needed it.
So we built our own — starting with a red Brahman heifer named Jelly.
Today HerdBook holds the records for the ~100 head in our cow-calf operation at Blau Ranch in Bellville, Texas. We're building it from the pasture outward, around the things we actually need to know about our cattle.
ROADMAP · NOT YET AVAILABLE
What we're building next.
None of these have shipped yet. HerdBook stands on the records themselves — these are what good records make possible later.
Next up
Offline capture.
Photos and records queued in the pasture, synced when you're back in service. Today, HerdBook needs a connection to save.
Later
Ask your herd.
"Who's the father of Honey's calf?" Natural-language Q&A across your full herd record.
On the horizon
Snap and identify.
A photo of an animal, matched to your herd. Made possible by your photo-first records.
Available to all subscribers as it ships. No upcharges, no tiers.
QUESTIONS
Questions worth asking.
Do I have to enter every animal by hand?
No. Import a spreadsheet or CSV and map your columns to animals, lineage, and history. If it's messy, email it to us and we'll help get your herd in.
Can I import my spreadsheet?
Yes. CSV and spreadsheet import covers animals, lineage, acquisition, and registration fields. Sire and dam tags get matched back to animals already in your herd, and leftover columns can come in as custom fields.
Can I export my data?
Yes. Full CSV and JSON export, any time, no questions.
Is my data mine?
Always. Encrypted storage, your ranch's data isolated from every other ranch, and export whenever you want it.
Can my family use the same ranch?
Yes. Invite owners, admins, and viewers to your ranch at no extra cost per seat. Everyone works from the same animal records.
Is there a limit on how many cattle I can track?
No. Pricing is per ranch, not per head. Unlimited animals, photos, and pastures.
Can I use it on my phone?
Yes. HerdBook runs in any phone browser — nothing to install — and handles iPhone photos, including the capture date.
Does it work offline?
Not yet. Today HerdBook needs a connection to save. Offline capture is in build and rolls out to every subscriber the moment it lands, no upcharge.
Can I share one animal with a buyer?
Yes. Every animal has a share link with her photos, lineage, history, and documents. You control what's shared, per animal.
Is HerdBook for registered cattle?
Yes. You can store registered names, herd numbers, registration paperwork, and pedigree — including dams and sires that were never on your place.
Is HerdBook useful for commercial cow-calf operations?
Yes, if you know your cattle individually. It's built for roughly 25 to 250 head, registered or commercial. It is not a feedlot or enterprise ranch system.
How is this different from Excel?
A spreadsheet gives you a row. HerdBook gives you a page — photos, calves, papers, vaccination history, pasture moves — that you can pull up on your phone in the pasture and send to a buyer.
How is this different from bigger herd-management software?
Bigger systems are built around the operation: reporting, analytics, compliance. HerdBook is built around the animal, and left intentionally simple.
What happens if I stop subscribing?
Your data stays put for 30 days while you decide, and you can export everything at any point. Nothing is deleted the day a trial or subscription ends.
WHO'S USING IT
Ranches on HerdBook.
We're early, and we'd rather show you real ranches than invented quotes. This is the first one.
Blau Ranch · ~100 head · family cow-calf · Bellville, Texas
Before: a calving notebook, a spreadsheet, registration folders, and a camera roll. Now: one profile per animal that both generations can pull up — and the reason HerdBook exists.
Running HerdBook on your place? We'd like to tell your story here — carey@careyworks.com.
SUBSCRIPTION · PER RANCH
$15
/ month
or $150 / year — save two months
· Unlimited animals, photos, and pastures
· Full lineage, health, and vaccination tracking
· Invite your whole ranch team, no price per seat
· Built and supported by a working cattle ranch
· Your data, encrypted and isolated to your ranch alone
· Future AI features included as they ship
Start your 14-day trial· Full lineage, health, and vaccination tracking
· Invite your whole ranch team, no price per seat
· Built and supported by a working cattle ranch
· Your data, encrypted and isolated to your ranch alone
· Future AI features included as they ship
Free for 14 days, no credit card, no commitment.