Software for cow-calf ranches.
Mule builds herd and calving record systems for cow-calf ranches: bull, cow and calf lineage tracking, EID and visual tag capture at branding, and field apps that work on pasture with no signal. Software is the lead line; we also build websites for ranches that sell direct or need a public presence.
What we know about cow-calf ranches.
Cow-calf ranches run most of the year on pasture, and the records follow the same rhythm: quiet for months, then a flood of it in a few chaotic days at branding or calving. Tag numbers, dam and sire pairings, weights and health treatments get written on a phone note, a notebook in the truck, or a whiteboard in the barn, and then someone has to sit down and type all of it into a spreadsheet before it's lost or half-remembered.
That re-entry step is where the record actually breaks. A tag number gets transposed, a calf's dam gets guessed at because the note wasn't clear, and by weaning the herd record and what actually happened at branding don't quite agree anymore.
Why a cow-calf ranch picks Mule.
- 01Field apps built for the truck and the pasture, no signal required, so tag numbers and pairings get recorded once, correctly, at branding.
- 02EID and visual tag capture together, since USDA now requires both on covered cattle moving interstate, with manual entry when a tag won't read.
- 03Herd records that keep dam, sire and calf lineage tied together from branding through weaning, not rebuilt from notes afterward.
- 04Dashboards that roll pasture-level records up into calving percentage and weaning weights without a spreadsheet you rebuild every year.
What cow-calf ranches usually need.
From cow-calf ranches.
Does the app work out on pasture where there's no cell signal?
Yes. It's built to run fully offline, everything you log at branding or during calving saves to the device and syncs automatically once you're back in range.
Do we need to capture EID tags too, or is a visual tag enough?
Depends on the animal. Since November 5, 2024, USDA requires the official ear tags on covered cattle, meaning all dairy cattle and sexually intact beef cattle 18 months and older, moving interstate to be both visually and electronically readable. Feeder cattle, steers, spayed heifers, and animals under 18 months headed to feeding, are exempt. We build to capture both together at branding for the animals the rule reaches, with a paired Bluetooth reader and manual entry as the fallback.
We've kept calving records in a spreadsheet for years. Can that come with us?
Yes. We bring your existing herd and calving history into the new system as part of the build, mapped to your ranch's own tag numbers and pairings, so you're not starting the record over.
How do you price something like a herd record system for a ranch our size?
From your actual operation, head count, how you run branding and calving, and what you're already tracking. There's no published price list because a ranch running a couple hundred pairs and one running a couple thousand need different things. You describe it, we quote it.
Do we need a website too?
Only if it helps you, whether you sell breeding stock, freezer beef direct, or just want to be findable. It's a smaller, separate line from the herd record system, never the default push.