Measuring key performance indicators on your animals goes beyond just height and weight! Many other factors contribute to the overall health and wellness assessment of an animal, and Farmbrite's livestock measurement feature can help you keep track of them. You can take standard physical measurements and you can also rate their body condition, environment, and even keep photos of any issues you find. These factors are compiled and summarized in Farmbrite's Animal Wellness Score, which gives you an at-a-glance reading of the overall health of your animal. If you need to follow up after an examination, you can flag the record, and then run reports to find any anomalies. And if all of that isn't enough, you can even create custom fields to track additional measured inputs and report on them too! Let's take a look at how you can start adding this data right now.
You can add measurement records directly from an animal record. Just navigate to the animal and choose Measurements, and then click the button for New Measurement. Hot Tip - You can use a Bluetooth enabled electronic ID scanner to easily add this measurement without navigating to the animal record, even if you are offline! Read more about that feature here.
You'll see a new window come up with 5 selections across the top. Each of these gives you the opportunity to add different information you measure for the animal. Note that no specific fields are required, you can choose to measure what is important for you!
Measures - You'll add basics like the date, weight, height and temperature here. Any measurement custom fields that you have added will also be recorded here.
Health Assessment - You'll find 20 separate data points to assess for the animal here. Each is rated on a scale of 1-5, from Poor (1) to Excellent (5), and can be selected individually or in bulk. There are external measurements for things like eyes, ears, and nose, as well as internal measurements for heart health, lung health, and more. You can also record assessments for more general characteristics like appetite, water consumption, and stress level.
Environment Assessment - Similar to the Health section, but with 6 fields to track things like air quality, temperature, moisture, insects, and cleanliness. Like Health, each is rated on a scale of 1-5, from Poor (1) to Excellent (5) and can be selected individually or in bulk.
Photos - If you find any issues you'd like to document, or just want to capture a photo of a health and happy animal, you can add them here. If you are using Farmbrite's mobile app this can integrate with your camera to capture a real time photo as you are recording the measurement. If you are using the desktop version you can always attach a photo later as well.
Comments - Take any notes you need to add more details about what you have observed in the measurement. These will also be available when reporting on
You'll see an additional checkbox to Flag for Follow-Up at the bottom of the measurement window that is shown on all of the tabs. If you check this, the measurement record will display a red flag, and will be included in the Wellness Follow Up report.
If you have completed any of the assessments under the Health or Environment sections, you'll see a Wellness Score calculated for the record, which will also be reflected on the main details page for that animal. This gives you an at-a-glance summary of the measurement, with the Health and Environment score weighted to determine an overall Wellness score. We have an entire article devoted to that where you can find formulas, calculations, ranges, and reports - check it out here!
Importing Measurements
If you'd prefer to import your measurements using a spreadsheet, you can add them to your animal using the Actions menu on the measurements page. Just click the Actions menu and select Import Records. You'll find an Import Template there to help with the column names and data to supply, and overall know that the Health and Environment scores accept values 1-5 to correspond with Poor, Fair, Okay, Good, and Excellent, respectively. For more information on how data imports work overall, check out this article.
Need more help with recording animal measurements? Reach out and ask, we are here to help!