Compliance & Audit Checklist

Herdwatch is a fantastic tool for making compliance easy, but it’s only as good as what you put into it, and you must watch out for a few things when it comes to compliance. If you’re unsure about any of this, just contact us and we will be glad to help.

IMPORTANT: If you have a Cross Compliance or Bord Bia audit coming up, you MUST have all relevant compliance reports printed or available on a computer (or your phone) before the audit takes place. While it is technically allowed, we do not recommend just handing your phone to the inspector or auditor! If you make their life easier by printing the reports, they will thank you for it ;-)

To get your reports in Herdwatch, follow these easy steps:

  1. Make sure you have an internet connection
  2. Click on “Reports” on the Home screen
  3. Choose “Bord Bia Audit” (or Dept Inspection if applicable)
  4. Select the first Report, e.g. “Remedy Usage Report”, click on “Run” and “Email me this Report”. The report will take a few seconds to generate and you will receive it by email, where you can print it from a computer
  5. Repeat steps 1 to 4 for all relevant reports
  • Always try to enter events in Herdwatch as they happen, right on your phone. For example, why not enter that remedy purchase while you are queuing to pay for it in the farm store or at the vet’s?
  • Catch up when you can – Herdwatch is always there in your pocket, so anytime you have a few minutes, just open it and record your last treatment or feed purchase, before you forget!
  • Remember, you can enter data anytime, anywhere even with no connection, just remember to open Herdwatch when you’re back online so you can back up all your changes to the cloud!
  • When recording your scanning, it might be a good idea to temporarily switch your phone into “Airplane” mode or turn off our “Live backup” feature. This will stop your phone from trying to backup after each scan. You can do this by tapping the Blue Magic Button on the bottom left of the home screen, then click on “Settings” and set “Live Backup” to OFF

Yes, but not so fast… if you have any written compliance records (remedies etc…) covering previous years, you must keep those until the regulatory time has elapsed (currently at least 5 years for bovine remedies)

Once you start recording all your cattle remedies in Herdwatch, this is done in a fully compliant manner so you don’t need to re-enter them in the blue book or on any kind of paperwork.

However, in order to be fully compliant with the Department of Agriculture Herd Register and Movements legislation, you must register on the Agfood website for the Bovine Electronic Register. This removes the need to maintain your Herd book if you also use Herdwatch*.

Even though you are set up on Agfood and Herdwatch you will not automatically be registered for Bovine Electronic Register. It’s very easy to register for this, simply follow the Steps below;

1. Log into Agfood.ie
2. Go into Animal Identifications and Movements
3. Click on Herd (Its located on the top of the page)
4. Click on Bovine Electronic Herd Register
5. You will have to enter your email address twice and click the Terms and Conditions box.

This means that the Agfood website will act as your official Herd register should you have a Cross Compliance inspection.

*Note: You should take regular backups of your Herdwatch information by running the relevant Herdwatch reports which you can then archive to a secure location for safe-keeping.

  • Record your remedy purchases as they happen. This will save you time when recording your treatments as you will be able to check what’s in your Remedies Cabinet at any time and simply click on “Use this Remedy”
  • If your Herdwatch Remedies Cabinet contains small quantities of used up remedies due to spillage or if they were returned, you can adjust this very easily:
    • Open the Remedy Purchase from your Cabinet
    • Click on Magic Button>Edit
    • Scroll down to the “Qty Returned/Spilled” field and add the spilled/returned qty (digits only)
    • Click on “Save”: the Remedy qty will be adjusted by that amount, and if it’s empty it will be removed from your cabinet (you can still show it by clicking on Magic Button>Include Empty Remedies)
  • If a vet performed the treatment, it is still the responsibility of the herd keeper to record it, make sure you get the details of the purchase and treatments from your vet and enter them in Herdwatch – we know this can be a challenge at times, but we don’t make the rules 😉
  • You can quickly repeat a repeat a Remedy purchase.
    • Tap on Compliance > Remedies and treatments > Remedies Cabinet.
    • If the previous purchase of the same remedy is empty, click the Magic button (top right) > Include Empty Remedies.
    • Open the Remedy( e.g. Alamycin) > Magic button > Repeat and select the purchase date of the new Remedy
    • You will see that all details have been copied over from the previous purchase.
    • Simply update the batch number and any other relevant info and click “Save”.

Herdwatch saves a lot of time on farm to farm movements, but you have to make sure you stay compliant by taking all steps outlined below:

  • When receiving animals into your herd, you MUST notify the movement to the Dept as soon as the animals are in your herd. To do this in Herdwatch (if the seller linked the movement cert to your herd number), go to “+” button (on home screen) > “Record a remedy or compliance event” > “Animal Movement” > “Movement in (Notification)” – Use the cert number given to you by the seller then confirm which animals moved. That’s it!
  • When applying for a movement cert, make sure you specify the “Move to” herd number in Herdwatch before you apply for the cert if you know where the animals are going – if you don’t do this, the destination herd keeper will not be able to notify the movement from Herdwatch and will have to do it using the paper form (this is a Dept limitation).
  • After applying for a movement cert, and when the animals are moving to the new herd, give the destination herd keeper the cert number so he/she can notify the movement of the animal(s) to the Dept.

Spray applications recorded in Herdwatch will only update the quantity left on the spray you selected when creating the application. If you used more spray than was in that container, you can still adjust the quantity in other spray containers in Herdwatch by following these steps:

  1. On the Home Screen, go to “Compliance” > “Sprays & Applications” > “On-Farm Spray Stock”
  2. Select the extra spray used in the application – if it’s not in your Store, create it by clicking on Magic Button > “Add new record” and record the FULL qty purchased.
  3. Scroll down to the “Qty Adjustment (already used)” field and enter the qty used in the last application (or add it to the current figure if not blank)
  4. Save the record, that’s it!

If you are subscribed to Herdwatch and ICBF Herd Plus, we will automatically send your serves, scans, weights, dry-offs and calf size/vigour to ICBF every day (as long as they have been backed up to our server). This will save you hours in data entry.

Note: if you do not wish to send these events to ICBF automatically please contact us and we can turn it off (The integration can only be turned on or off for ALL events)

Watch our handy Video Tutorials

Recording Remedy Purchases in Herdwatch

Recording Animal Treatments in Herdwatch