Have You Seen My Brain?

My husband often hears this question as I am walking from room to room searching. His response is “between your ears” and laughs. To me it is not very funny as my “brain” is very important. What I am searching for is my calendar planner.

This calendar planner is the most important tool I have for raising sheep. I choose a planner with a month – week calendar. After each month, the weeks follow to put daily entries. I am not fond of bookkeeping, but bookkeeping is necessary. My planner is my bookkeeping system.

I keep track of everything. I mark down the day I put the ram in with the ewes and expected lamming dates. During lamming, I record the ear tag of the ewe and how many and sex of the lambs. Activities such as vaccinations and deworming are marked with when and what product. I also mark down when I start on a large haybale in order to track how long each haybale lasts and project next purchase.

When I buy feed, vet supplies or equipment I mark down what I purchased and how much. I track the sale of the sheep as well. At the end of the month I add up the expenses and the income, and figure profit/loss.

This is a simple way of tracking and staying on schedule for my sheep farming business. I use the written method of my planner as I remember better if I write it down, but a computer generated planner would do the same. Each person can use and expand this tool to fit the needs of their sheep farming.

Granny