Sandy Johnson at Kansas State University (K-State) and colleagues at the Iowa Beef Center a few years ago developed a free software program called “Management Minder” that allows producers to establish a yearly calendar for all aspects of cattle production.

Management Minder is a web-based tool to help create a yearly production calendar for your cow-calf, replacement heifer or growing calf operation. The start of the breeding season sets the course for timing key management activities for the cow herd. The program contains an extensive list of activities that can be added to a customized calendar, and a person can add their own items, as well. Once created, the calendar can be downloaded and available on a mobile device. This tool reminds you when it is time for vaccinations, purchasing supplies, starting cows on a high-magnesium mineral and more.

Johnson is an extension specialist with a background in bovine reproduction. She says the cow has a yearly schedule. Everything we do with the cow herd revolves around when we decide to breed cows to calve at a certain time of year. This sets the clock in motion.

“It’s important to have cows in good body condition score (BCS) at calving, since this relates to her ability to calve normally and rebreed. If we take good care of cows in the third trimester of pregnancy, the whole year goes better. Here in western Kansas, often that stage of pregnancy is when people are harvesting grain,” she says. People are always busy, but some times of year it’s difficult to keep track of everything that needs to be done, or remember when to do it.

“In this electronic age, we wanted a way to make our reminders electronic. We’ve always sent out written newsletters to remind people of important things — but if it was electronic, people could make their own calendar, based on their own calving date and/or have it come up on their phone. A reminder could pop up saying ‘third trimester starts today; check body condition score on cows in the next week,’” she says.

“If you plan to use an IGR (insect growth regulator) mineral mix for fly control, this should be started within a couple weeks after the last freeze. You won’t be thinking about flies yet, at that time; but you should be,” she explains.

“That’s the idea behind this tool — to help personalize a herd production calendar. As an extension specialist I try to guide my comments around when the average producer is planning to do certain things, knowing that even though March 1st might be a common start date for calving, many producers calve earlier or later,” she says.

An electronic personalized calendar seemed to better fit specific producers’ needs to provide those reminders. “It’s not rocket science; just a simple tool a graduate student, Dinesh Poddaturi, helped build. It can be shared with other people on your ranch, or your veterinarian might add in your animal health calendar. It is designed to allow those kinds of interactions that might be helpful.”