User Guide

Everything you need to install and use KraalBook — register your animals, capture events in the field, and produce the paperwork to move and sell stock. KraalBook is free to download on the Apple App Store for iPhone and on Google Play for Android.

What is KraalBook

KraalBook is a complete herd health & compliance platform for your phone. You register your cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, capture every health event in the field — FMD and other vaccinations, treatments and more — and produce fact sheets and the §6/§8 removal certificates needed to move and sell stock. FMD is the flagship compliance use case, and it works on a basic Android phone, in the field, with no signal.

Animals can be individuals or batches (a group tracked together, like a flock of sheep). Each animal needs at least one unique tag — an EID (15-digit electronic ear tag, usually starting 982) and/or a visual tag (the printed plastic ear-tag number). Your farm brand is the owner's mark and is the same on every animal.

Getting started

1. Create your farm in the app (30-day free trial), or sign up on the website.
2. Install the app — iPhone from the App Store, Android from Google Play.
3. Add your farm details — name, brand, district, and your locations (camps, crushes, fridges).
4. Invite your stockmen by phone number — they get a WhatsApp link and a 6-digit invite code.
5. In the field, scan animals with an EID reader and record events.
6. Records save to the phone instantly (no signal needed) and sync automatically when you get signal.

Installing

• Android: download KraalBook free from Google Play — search “KraalBook”, or tap “Get it on Google Play” on the install page.
• iPhone: download KraalBook free from the App Store — search “KraalBook”, or tap “Download on the App Store” on the home page. Open it and create your farm to start.

Signing in

Sign in with your phone number (international format, e.g. +27821234567) and password — your phone number is your username. You stay signed in for 30 days, and your phone number is remembered after the first login.

When you create your farm, KraalBook first verifies your phone by SMS — a 6-digit code is texted to you and a “Verify your number” pop-up appears; type the code to create the farm and sign in. If the code doesn't arrive, tap “Send a new code” (codes expire after 10 minutes).

The app tabs

• Home — active-animals summary, FMD compliance, alerts, stock counts and Field mode. A sync bar shows “Herd synced X min ago” with a Refresh button, and during the trial a banner shows how many days you have left.
• Animals — your herd, with species tiles (cattle / sheep / goats / pigs); tap one for that species' list, with search and live Sex / Category / Location filter chips (the Location filter rolls up sub-camps, with an “includes N in sub-camps” note).
• Reports — compliance and performance reports (farm owner only — stockmen don't see this tab).
• Alerts — one inbox of what needs attention, including “Sick animals — follow up”.
• Settings — account, farm settings, farm locations, stockmen, animal categories, language, sign out.

Field mode is the simpler, action-first set of screens for working at the crush — big, glove-friendly buttons for Add animal, Birth, Purchase, Vaccination, Treatment, Weight, Sick animal, Pregnancy check, Movement, RFID tag, Stock count, Sale and Death.

Adding animals

On the Animals tab, tap +. Pick the species and whether it's an Individual or a Batch (a batch adds a head count). Scan the EID tag with your reader, or type a visual tag — fill at least one (both is best). Set the sex and the location. “More details” adds breed, colour, cattle category and date of birth (needed for auction documents). “Save and add next” keeps your settings so you can run through a whole group fast. Everything saves instantly, even offline.

For male animals you can mark Castrated (Yes/No) when adding, buying or at birth — the app then classes the animal on the ox track (Weaner ox / Ox for cattle, Wether for sheep and goats, Barrow for pigs) instead of Bull. Categories (Calf, Weaner, Heifer, Cow, Bull, Ox and so on) are worked out automatically from sex, age, castration and calving history — you can override one animal via Edit animal → Category, and tune the age thresholds (cattle for now) under Settings → Animal categories.

Load your herd

Already have your herd on a spreadsheet? You can load the whole lot in one go instead of adding animals one at a time — download the template, fill in your animals, and import it in the app (Settings → Import herd). Put a mother's tag on a calf's row and the import links the calf to its dam and records the calving for you. Re-uploading the same file is safe — animals already added are skipped, so you can fix a few rows and import again. See the full Load your herd guide for the column-by-column walkthrough and the common spreadsheet pitfalls.

Recording events

Birth

Records a new calf and links it to its mother. Set the date and location, pick the mother (only females show; the calf inherits her species), then enter the calf's tag(s), sex and date of birth. Works offline, except the mother must already be synced before you record her calf.

Purchase

Records animals you bought plus the seller details in one step — “bought from”, date, destination location, then each animal.

Vaccination

Three steps: set up → scan → done. Pick the vaccine (FMD, Anthrax, Lumpy Skin, and more), enter the batch number, and the location. For FMD the fridge temperature, expiry date and authorised vet are required. Then scan each animal — a big counter tracks progress. Fully offline.

Treatment

Record medicine given to your animals. Pick the treatment type and medicine, an optional dose, and the withdrawal period in days. KraalBook then warns you — it never blocks — before you sell or record the death of an animal that's still inside a medicine withdrawal period, and the animal's fact sheet shows a withdrawal banner until the period is up. Same set-up → scan → done shape as a vaccination, and fully offline.

RFID tag — add or replace an electronic tag

Most animals start with only a visual tag. To register an electronic tag later — or replace one lost in the field — open Field mode → RFID tag, or use “Add / replace RFID tag” on an animal's fact sheet. Scan the animal, scan the new 15-digit RFID, and save. Every tagging is recorded on the animal's history.

Death

Use Field mode → Death, scan the animal, and record it. It moves to the Deaths list. If the animal is still inside a medicine withdrawal period, the app flags it so you can confirm before recording.

Movement

Move one animal or a whole group to another camp. Set the destination camp and the date, then scan or pick the animals. Each move is written to the animal's history as a from-camp → to-camp trail, so you always know where stock has been. Works offline.

Weight

Record an animal's weight at any time — at weaning, before a sale, or as a routine check. Weights build each animal's growth curve and feed the Growth (ADG) report. Works offline.

Sick animal

Report a sick or injured animal — scan or pick it, type the symptoms, and optionally set a severity (Mild / Moderate / Severe). Open reports appear under Alerts → “Sick animals — follow up” and as a red “Reported sick” banner on the animal's fact sheet. The report clears when you record a Treatment, tap the green “Mark recovered” button (for an animal that got better without medicine), or record the death — so you never log a medicine that wasn't given. Works offline.

Pregnancy check

Record a pregnancy-test result (in-calf or empty) against a female. It feeds the Reproductive scorecard so you can track conception and calving performance. Works offline.

Stock count (muster)

Do a physical head-count — scan or tick off the animals you find in a camp. KraalBook shows which animals weren't found, which is the basis of the Theft & shrinkage report, so you catch missing stock early.

Daily count

Count every camp in one quick pass: tap “Daily count” at the top of the Stock count screen. All camps are listed as a tree with a number box each — type today's count per camp and tap “Save all”. A camp lights up “N short” if your number is below what's expected, and shows the change since your last count, so a slow leak stands out. Leave a camp blank to skip it. Your count history (“Past counts”) is also reachable from the Reports tab and the Home screen, and stays viewable offline.

Fixing a mistake

Only the farm owner can remove or correct a saved record — open the animal's event history and tap the entry. “Remove entry” deletes it (pick a reason); it stops counting everywhere immediately, but stays greyed-out in the full history as “Removed — reason” so inspectors always see an honest trail. If the entry was captured for several animals in one run, you can remove it for just this animal or for all of them at once, and on batch treatment/vaccination entries “Correct details” fixes the medicine, batch number, dose or withdrawal days for the whole run. You can currently remove vaccinations, treatments, weigh-ins, sick reports, pregnancy checks and check records — removing sales, movements, deaths and animals added by mistake is coming later.

Sales & §6/§8 certificates

There are two sale types:

• Private sale — sold directly to a buyer. You capture the buyer's full details up-front (these print on the document).
• To auction — animals are consigned; you confirm the outcome (sold / not sold) after the sale.

Set up the sale, then scan or filter-and-pick the animals. KraalBook warns if cattle going to a sale aren't FMD-compliant. When you build a sale it generates the §6/§8 removal certificate as a PDF — filled with your farm details, brand, the animal list and tag numbers — which you send via WhatsApp, email or print. For a private sale the buyer's details fill the document's “buyer / recipient” column.

Working offline

The app works fully without signal, including login after your first online login. You can view your herd, search, add locations and animals, and capture events offline. Locally-saved items show an orange “Syncing” badge; a rejected item shows a red “Failed” badge (tap to see why and fix or delete it). When you reconnect, the queue syncs automatically. You cannot lose data by going offline — even force-quitting keeps the queue.

Animal fact sheets

Tap any animal to open its fact sheet — the complete, buyer-ready history: animal details, your farm details (name, address, GLN, GPS, brand, owner signature) and the full event history. Tap “Print / Share fact sheet” to make a PDF and send it via WhatsApp, email, AirDrop, Files/Drive or a printer. Works for any status and works offline.

EID scanners

KraalBook works with any reader that acts as a keyboard (HID) and reads ISO 11784/11785 tags; the reference model is the Sycreader W90B. Tap a Tag/EID field first, then trigger the scanner — the 15-digit number types in and usually auto-submits.

• Android: USB scanners plug in (USB-A needs a USB-C OTG adapter); Bluetooth scanners pair as a Bluetooth keyboard.
• iPhone: Lightning iPhones (iPhone 14 and earlier) must use a Bluetooth scanner; iPhone 15+ (USB-C) works with a USB-C OTG cable or Bluetooth.

To test a Bluetooth scanner: pair it in the phone's Bluetooth settings, open any notes app, tap into a text field, and scan a tag — the 15 digits should appear. Use Bluetooth HID mode (not BLE).

Stockmen

In Settings → Stockmen (farmer/owner only) you can invite, deactivate and revoke stockmen. To invite: enter the stockman's name, SA mobile number and invite language (English or isiZulu), tap “Generate invite code”, then “Share via WhatsApp” — the message carries the full install and activation steps (iPhone installs from the App Store, Android from Google Play). The stockman taps “I have an invite code” and enters their phone, the 6-digit code and a new password. The screen groups Active / Invited (each card shows how long the code has left) / Deactivated — resend re-shares the same code, revoke cancels an invite, and deactivate turns off an active stockman (their records are kept). The farmer and stockman use the same app — the role is decided after sign-in.

Farm settings

Settings → Farm settings:

• Owner — your name and 13-digit SA ID number (needed for auction paperwork; can add later).
• Farm — name, brand mark (pick 1–3 characters from the legal SA chart using the visual brand picker — it prints on every fact sheet and §6/§8 document), district, GLN and address.
• Farm GPS — tap “Use my current location”, or type latitude/longitude.
• Signature — draw your signature once and it appears on every fact sheet.

Farm locations

Your locations form a hierarchy: farm → camps → sub-camps. KraalBook creates your main farm automatically from your farm name at sign-up, so your first camps simply sit under it. Add a location from the Add Animal form or from Settings → Farm locations: give it a name, choose what it “Sits under”, and optionally its size in hectares — sizes add up per farm and KraalBook works out your stocking rate (animals per hectare).

Settings → Farm locations shows the tree with each row's rolled-up head count, size and stocking rate; tap a location to edit its name, where it sits, or its size (deleting a location isn't available yet). Locations are owner-managed — stockmen see them but can't add or change them. New locations save offline; editing an existing one needs a data connection.

Reports

The Reports tab has grown into a full suite — every report is built automatically from the events you capture, with no extra data entry. It's for the farm owner (stockmen don't see the Reports tab, though they can still open the Treatment register). Two flagships sit at the top:

• Farm health scorecard — your whole farm in one score: vaccinations, breeding, growth, health and records at a glance.
• Audit & compliance pack — one tap to send a vet or inspector everything (FMD, vaccinations, medicines, stock counts and more) as a branded PDF.

Plus, available now:

• FMD compliance by camp — which cattle need FMD, broken down per camp, worst first.
• Vaccination register & cold chain — every vaccination and FMD coverage, with a cold-chain log that flags fridge-temperature breaches and any expired vaccine used.
• Treatment register — every medicine given, by animal, type and date, with withdrawal status.
• Antibiotic use & withdrawal calendar — how much antibiotic you use, and which animals you can't sell or slaughter yet.
• Top breeders — your best breeding females per species, ranked by offspring or calving interval.
• Reproductive scorecard — conception, calving and empties.
• Breeding cow performance (cattle) — cow by cow: who is in-calf, proven cows now coming up empty, possible pregnancy losses, and seasons skipped.
• Growth (ADG) — average daily gain and growth over time.
• Herd growth — a reconciling waterfall from opening to closing head: births, purchases, animals loaded in, sales and deaths, with a monthly trend.
• Theft & shrinkage — your musters show which animals weren't found and which camps lose the most.
• Mortality & health — death and sickness rates, causes, age at death and worst-hit camps.
• Grazing & stocking rate — how hard each camp is grazed (Large Stock Units).
• Herd structure — a population pyramid by age and sex, category mix and key ratios like cows per bull.
• Animal passport — one animal's whole life: full history, parentage and timeline.
• Stock counts — your muster history and missing animals.

More reports are added regularly.

Languages

The app supports English, Afrikaans and isiZulu. Set it at sign-up or change it in Settings → Language; it follows your account across devices. The field-capture (stockman) screens are fully translated, so a worker can record events start to finish in their own language. Medicine and vaccine names — and details read off a bottle, like dose and batch number — deliberately stay in English so registers and audit packs always match what a vet or inspector reads.

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