Why it pays to keep animal records on your phone
Anyone who keeps horses knows how many small details pile up around a single animal. The microchip number is in the passport, the passport is in a binder, the binder is in the office. The date of the last vaccination is in a message from the vet six months ago. Only one person on the ranch remembers the name of the mare’s sire. And the fact that the gelding in stall four dislikes being touched on his left hind leg is something the new seasonal helper finds out when it is already too late.
Animal records on paper or in a spreadsheet work as long as you have two animals and do everything yourself. With every additional horse, every employee and every client who boards a horse with you, the information fragments and gets lost. That is why the iPalomino app is built on a simple idea: every animal has one profile where everything essential is written down, and everyone who needs that profile has it with them.
This is not another spreadsheet to maintain. You fill in a horse profile once and from then on you only add to it — and the other parts of the app pull their data from it on their own. The calendar knows which horse an appointment concerns, the horse health record grows right inside the profile, and the stall QR code reads the feed ration and alerts from it.
What a horse profile and animal card contain
The profile is designed so that you find the answer to the most common questions without having to call anyone. You don’t have to fill in everything at once — fields you don’t know yet can simply be completed later, and everything saves itself as soon as you finish typing.
Basic details and photo
Name, species, breed, colour, sex and date of birth, from which the app calculates the age for you. A profile photo helps especially in larger stables, where a new worker cannot yet tell two bay mares apart. If you have no photo, the animal gets a drawn silhouette matching its species.
Identification: microchip number, passport and registration number
A horse’s microchip number, passport number and registration number are details you need only a few times a year — which is exactly why nobody remembers them. In the profile they are written down once and for all. When the vet asks for the chip number at vaccination, or when you fill in the ownership transfer and other forms on a sale, you just open the profile.
Origin and pedigree
You enter the animal’s dam and sire in the profile. If a foal is born at your place and you keep breeding and the covering of the mare in the app, the foal’s profile with its pedigree is created automatically after birth — dam and sire are carried over from the breeding record.
Location, alerts and owner
- Stall or pasture — where the animal is right now, so that even someone who isn’t on the ranch every day can find it.
- What to watch out for — a prominent note about behaviour, an allergy, an injury or a bad habit, shown right at the top of the profile and after scanning the QR code.
- Owner — for each animal you set whether it belongs to you or to a client who boards it with you.
- Medication and dosing — what the animal should get and when, with a reminder at the set time.
How to set up your animal list step by step
An animal list comes together in a few minutes, and you need neither a computer nor training. The procedure is the same for one horse in the yard and for a farm with dozens of animals.
- Add your first animalTap “New animal”, choose the species and type the name. That is all that is required — the profile exists and you can work with it.
- Add the identificationCopy the microchip number, passport number and registration number from the passport. You do it once and never look for the binder again.
- Enter the location and alertsStall, pasture and a short note on what to watch out for. This is exactly what grooms and seasonal helpers appreciate.
- Add a photoTake a picture of the animal straight from the app or pick one from your gallery. The list is then readable at a glance.
- Let the profile growVaccinations, weigh-ins, farrier appointments, feeding and documents are entered in the other modules and appear in the profile on their own.
How much time searching for animal details costs you
Try to count honestly how many times a week you look for some detail about an animal — the chip number, the deworming date, the owner’s phone number, the feed ration. Set both values to match your situation and see how many hours that adds up to in a year. With animal records on your phone you find the same detail in the profile in a few taps.
The calculation is based purely on your own estimates — the chart shows how much time disappears today while searching through notebooks, binders and old messages.
Who animal records in iPalomino help
An animal profile looks the same for everyone, yet each person looks for something different in it. That is why it is built so that both the owner of a single horse and a large stable with a team of people find what they need.
Horse owners
Do you have one or two horses at home or boarded at a ranch? The profile holds everything you would otherwise hunt for in the passport and in messages: the chip, vaccinations, the feed ration, the farrier’s contact. When you go on holiday, the person looking after your horse sees exactly what they need.
Farms and breeders
On a farm with several species you keep horses, cows, goats and sheep in one list and see each animal’s location and identification. During an inspection or a vet visit you don’t leaf through papers — you open the profile.
Ranches and stables with a team
In a stable with clients’ boarded horses, horse records are the basis of order. For each horse it is clear who owns it, where it stands and what to watch out for. New grooms find their bearings in a day, not a month.
Professionals: farrier, vet, trainer
A farrier, vet or trainer you invite into the app sees the animal’s profile before they even arrive in the yard. They know which horse they will be working with, what alerts it has and what happened to it last time.
Records of horses, cows, goats and sheep in one place
Although iPalomino was born on a ranch among horses, its animal records are not just for horses. When creating a profile you choose the species: horse, pony, donkey, mule, cow, bull, calf, pig, sheep, goat, poultry, rabbit, llama, alpaca, dog, cat and more. The list at the top shows how many animals of each species you have, and each one has its own drawn icon.
For mixed farms this is a great relief. Instead of one app for the horses and a notebook for the goats, you have one set of records, one calendar and one feed stock. If you run several sites at once, also take a look at managing multiple farms and ranches — you assign each animal to the stable it belongs to.
The most common mistakes in horse records and how to avoid them
Animal records don’t go wrong through bad intentions but through putting things off. These five mistakes are the ones seen most often in stables — and each has a simple solution:
- Details only in the passport, which lies in a drawer. You need the microchip number at the vet’s, on a sale and when an animal goes missing. In the horse’s profile you have it on your phone even when the passport is at home.
- One notebook for everything. A notebook is easy to write in but hard to search. You search the animal list in the app by name in a second.
- Alerts only the owner knows. That a horse kicks when its hind feet are lifted, or can’t tolerate a certain medicine, is not something a new groom should find out alone. Alerts in the profile are seen by everyone who works with the horse.
- An old photo and an outdated description. A picture of a foal from three years ago won’t help you find a horse that has strayed. You change the profile photo in a few seconds.
- Records without history. Knowing what is true today isn’t enough. An animal card makes sense when the horse health record, the calendar and the documents build on it.
Good animal records don’t come from one big tidy-up. They come from writing down every new detail the moment it appears — and that is only possible when you carry the records in your pocket.
The animal profile as the centre of the whole app
The greatest strength of the profile is not what you write into it, but what connects to it. From the profile, one tap takes you to the health record, the stall QR code, breeding and reproduction, and the animal’s documents. And the other way round — when you create a farrier appointment in the stable calendar, you choose which horses it concerns, and the appointment also appears in their profiles.
Tasks for grooms and the team work the same way: the task “check the wound” belongs to a specific horse, and everyone who opens its profile sees it there. Horse feeding and feed stock in turn knows which animals you are planning a feeding for and deducts supplies accordingly.
It is Saturday, the ranch owner is away at a competition and the horses are being looked after by a seasonal helper who is here for the third time. The mare Bella starts limping. The helper opens her profile: he sees the note “sensitive on the left hind”, finds in the health record that she had a similar problem a month ago, and has the vet who treated her then in the contacts.
He doesn’t have to call anyone to ask what to do and whom to ring. Everything the owner knows about Bella, he knows at that moment too. That is exactly what animal records on your phone are for.
Frequently asked questions
How many animals can I add to the records?
The animal list is built for one horse in the yard as well as for a farm or ranch with dozens of animals. You add animals gradually, and each has its own profile with photo, identification and history.
Can I keep records of animals other than horses?
Yes. When creating a profile you choose the species — besides horses, ponies and donkeys, for example cows, goats, sheep, pigs, poultry, rabbits, llamas or dogs. All animals are in one list and share the same calendar and feed stock.
What if I don’t know all the details about a horse?
That’s fine. Only the name and species are required. You add the microchip number, passport, pedigree or date of birth when you have them at hand — the profile saves as you go.
Will my employees or the vet see the animal’s profile too?
Those you invite with an invite code will. A ranch worker and a professional see the profiles of the animals in the stable; the owner of a boarded horse sees only their own horse. You’ll find more in the section on roles and access.
Do animal records work without the internet?
Yes, the app stores the data right on your phone, so you can open a profile even in a barn with no signal. When the connection returns, the changes sync by themselves. See the offline stable app.
Related features of the iPalomino app
The animal profile is the foundation. These modules build on it most often:
Your whole ranch in one pocket.
iPalomino is now on the App Store. Download the app and try it in your own stable. An Android version is in development.