Five Questions Your Farm Records Should Answer Every Month

Good farm records are not about having data. They are about having answers.

At the end of every month, you should be able to sit down, open your records, and answer five specific questions in under a minute each. If you cannot, your record-keeping system — whether it is a notebook, a spreadsheet, or an app — is collecting information without creating insight.

Here are the five questions, why they matter, and what to do with the answers.

1. What did my farm earn and spend this month?

This is the most basic question in any business, and most Kenyan farmers cannot answer it accurately.

What you need:

Total income from all sources (milk sales, egg sales, livestock sales, other)
Total expenses in categories (feed, veterinary, labour, transport, inputs)
Net result: income minus expenses

Why it matters: A farm that produces a lot of milk can still lose money if feed costs, vet bills, and labour eat the margin. You need both sides of the equation.

What to do with it: Compare this month to last month. Is the trend improving or declining? If expenses grew faster than income, find out which category drove the increase.

Common surprise: Many farmers discover that their farm is less profitable than they thought — or more profitable than they feared. Either way, knowing is better than guessing.

2. Which animals are earning their keep?

Not every animal on your farm contributes equally. In any dairy herd, some cows produce well above average and others produce well below. The same applies to poultry houses and pig litters.

What you need:

Per-cow milk yield for the month (total litres, daily average)
Per-house egg production for poultry (total eggs, Hen Day Production percentage)
Per-pig growth rate for swine (weight gain, Average Daily Gain)

Why it matters: If you have 10 cows and 2 are producing 30% below the herd average, those 2 cows are consuming feed, space, and veterinary attention without returning equivalent value. You need to know which ones.

What to do with it: Rank your animals by production. The bottom 20% deserve investigation — are they sick, old, poorly fed, or genetically limited? The answer determines whether you adjust management or plan for culling.

Common surprise: The cow you thought was your best performer often is not — because you remember the good days but the data captures every day.

3. What is my feed cost per unit of production?

Feed accounts for 60–70% of production costs on most livestock farms. If you do not know your feed cost per litre of milk, per kilogram of eggs, or per kilogram of meat gained, you are flying blind on your biggest expense.

What you need:

Total feed cost for the month (all types: concentrates, roughage, supplements)
Total production for the month (litres of milk, kilograms of eggs, kilograms of weight gained)
Division: total feed cost ÷ total production = cost per unit

Why it matters: When feed prices change — and they change constantly in Kenya — this number tells you whether your margins are tightening. A feed price increase of KES 200 per bag might seem small, but if it moves your cost per litre from KES 25 to KES 30, and the processor pays KES 45, your margin just shrank by a third.

What to do with it: Track this number monthly. When it rises, investigate: did feed prices go up, did production go down, or both? The cause determines the response.

Common surprise: Most farmers underestimate their feed cost per unit by 20–40% because they forget to include roughage, minerals, and supplementary feeds in the calculation.

4. Are there any health trends I should worry about?

Individual health events — a cow with mastitis, a hen that died, a piglet with diarrhoea — feel random when they happen. But over a month, patterns emerge.

What you need:

Total health events this month (treatments, vet calls, deaths)
Which animals were affected and what conditions
Total health spend
Comparison to the previous month

Why it matters: Three mastitis cases in one month might mean a milking hygiene problem. A spike in poultry mortality after a specific feed batch might mean contamination. A pattern of respiratory issues in pigs after rain might mean housing ventilation is inadequate.

What to do with it: Look for clusters. Same animal getting sick repeatedly? Same disease across multiple animals? Same timing pattern? These clusters point to systemic problems that are cheaper to fix at the root cause than to treat animal by animal.

Common surprise: Farmers who start recording health events almost always discover they spend more on veterinary care than they realised — and that a significant portion goes to the same 2–3 animals.

5. What is coming up in the next 30 days?

Good records do not just look backward. They look forward. Your data should generate a list of upcoming events that need your attention.

What you need:

Cows due for heat check (based on last insemination or calving date)
Vaccination due dates (based on last vaccination and schedule)
Expected calvings or farrowings (based on breeding dates)
Feed reorder points (based on current inventory and daily usage rate)
Loan or payment due dates

Why it matters: Reactive farming is expensive. Every missed heat, every late vaccination, every surprise calving, every empty feed store costs money. A 30-day look-ahead turns surprises into scheduled tasks.

What to do with it: Review the upcoming events list at the start of each week. Assign tasks to yourself or your farm workers. Check them off as completed. This is farm management, not just farm recording.

Common surprise: The first time you see a 30-day look-ahead generated from your own data, you realise how many things you were tracking in your head — and how many were falling through the cracks.

Making this a monthly habit

Set a day. The first of every month, or the last Sunday, or whatever works for your schedule. Sit down for 20 minutes, open your records, and answer these five questions.

Write down the answers. Not in detail — just the key numbers and one action item per question. Over 12 months, these monthly snapshots become the most valuable management document on your farm.

Your records are not a filing obligation. They are a management tool. Use them like one.

Track everything you need at shira.farm.