Homestead Keeper

Keeping a smallholding means remembering hundreds of little things, and most of them matter at different times. Here you can keep records for individual animals or whole groups, from a flock of chickens and a herd of goats to an apiary. Add a photo, tag number, breed and age, then keep weight history, vaccinations, treatments and inspections in the same record. When another procedure is due, you get a reminder instead of having to hunt through old notes. Feeding has its own routine. Set what to feed, how much, at what time and on which days, then check the daily view to see who has already been fed and who is still waiting. The home screen gives you the rest of the day's picture too: today's tasks, feeding progress and anything overdue. Reminders cover both feedings and tasks, so a busy morning is a little harder to derail. Production records let you log eggs, milk, meat, wool, honey, cheese and offspring. Charts show how production changes over time. Sales and expenses sit alongside those records: enter what you sold, the revenue and payment method, then sort costs into categories such as feed, veterinary care, equipment and repairs. The app calculates whether you're ahead or behind for the week, month, year or across all recorded time. There are a couple of shortcuts for jobs that are especially annoying to enter by hand. Point the camera at a tag or ring to open the matching animal record. Photograph a receipt and the expense amount and date are filled in automatically. You can also write notes, attach photos and link a note to a specific animal. Your records stay available without an internet connection, which makes sense when the place you need them is a barn, field or apiary rather than a desk. Data can be exported to spreadsheets, backed up and restored later.