Farmitrax: herd management built for everyday farm work

Farmitrax is a dairy herd management application developed in Quebec by a dairy farmer, for dairy farmers.

I developed Farmitrax because existing management software often felt to me like a spaceship cockpit: extremely powerful and very complete, but sometimes far removed from the day-to-day work in the barn.

With Farmitrax, I chose a different approach: highlight what needs to be done, make useful information easy to find, and record interventions without making the work unnecessarily complicated.

An application designed to be used in the barn

Farmitrax runs directly in a web browser and can be installed on a phone, tablet or computer.

Its dashboard displays overdue tasks, today’s tasks and upcoming tasks. This makes it easier to see which animals need attention and to keep a clear record of completed work.

Modules currently available

Reproduction

The reproduction module tracks the main stages of each animal’s reproductive cycle:

• heats and breedings;
• pregnancy checks;
• current pregnancies;
• expected calvings;
• dry-offs;
• related tasks and reminders.

Events are kept in the animal’s record so its history can be found quickly and the next required intervention is easy to identify.

Health

The health module allows farmers to record health issues, treatments and medications administered.

It makes it easier to track:

• illnesses and observations;
• treatments performed;
• products and medications used;
• milk withdrawal periods;
• each animal’s health history.

The goal is to make information available when it is needed and reduce the risk of something being forgotten.

Barn layout

The barn layout provides a visual representation of where animals are located.

It makes it easy to locate an animal, see how the herd is organized and move animals when their location changes. It can adapt to tie-stall barns as well as facilities with different groups or locations.

The information you need, without searching everywhere

Each animal has a record containing its information and history. Tasks generated by the different modules are brought together in one dashboard.

Farmitrax is designed to answer three simple questions:

• What needs to be done?
• For which animal?
• What has already been done?

An application that evolves with real farm needs

Farmitrax is developed around needs encountered on a real dairy farm. The application continues to evolve based on how it is used and on feedback from farmers.

The goal is not to add features simply to make the list longer, but to build a practical, understandable tool that is genuinely useful every day.