What this is
Think of Agent as a compliance administrator sitting in your office. The audit binder we built is the job done once. This is what that administrator does the rest of the year — collecting your records, filing them, and keeping an eye on what's due — so the next Arla, Avara, Red Tractor or TB visit is a non-event rather than a scramble.
None of this is extra paperwork. You carry on running the farm and feeding me what you already record — the parlour log, the broiler sheets, the medicine book, the spreading diary — and I do the collecting, collating and filing. Below is what I suggest for your farm, based on the dairy herd, the broiler house, the pedigree Herefords, the digester and your NVZ ground. Read it, change anything that doesn't fit, and tell me to put it into practice.
One thing worth knowing: if you'd like me to chase you when something's missing — not just wait until you open me — leave the office computer on with the Claude desktop app running. An administrator who's gone home can't notice the broiler mortality didn't come in.
Every day — just feed me as it happens
- The daily stock checks. Dairy herd and cattle once a day, the broiler house at least twice a day — drop the figures in and I'll file the welfare inspection records.
- Broiler mortality. Give me the day's numbers; I'll keep the running cumulative % and warn you the moment it drifts toward a trigger threshold.
- Bulk tank temperature. The log that milk's cooled to 8°C or below (6°C or below if it isn't collected every day) — I'll keep it filed for Arla and the Dairy Hygiene inspector.
- Broiler conditions — feed, water, temperature, litter, gait. Hand me the readings; I'll keep the monitoring record.
- I quietly keep your herd register, movement records and medicine book current in the background — you don't have to think about them, just feed me the entries below.
When something happens, drop it in — not daily, but catch these while you remember and I'll file each against the right audit:
- A calf is born → I'll flag the first ear tag (within 36 hours for dairy calves), the second tag (within 20 days) and start the passport application (the 27-day clock).
- Cattle move on or off → I'll log the movement (3-day rule) and remind you that cattle leaving need a clear TB test in the 60 days before they go (calves under 42 days old are exempt).
- An animal dies → I'll do the death notification and passport return (7 days), and file the fallen-stock collection document (keep it 2 years).
- Any treatment — cow, beef, pedigree or bird → I'll record it with the withdrawal date worked out, and the extra justification note if it's a critically-important antibiotic. Mastitis cases and treated-cow milk diversion the same.
- A broiler crop turns round → placement record, the Salmonella boot swabs (the legal one in the 3 weeks before slaughter; the pre-placement one is your buyer's), slaughter and clean-out records. If you ever change stocking density, I'll prompt the WF90.
- You spread slurry, digestate or muck → I'll write the NVZ field record (date, field, rate, nitrogen, weather, buffer) and keep the running total against your 170 kg N/ha limit. Imported or exported muck, I'll log the declaration.
Once a week — a five-minute sit-down
Open me and say "weekly check". I'll look at what's come in since last time and tell you what's missing while it's still easy to fix — an untagged calf, a treatment with no withdrawal date, a spreading event not written up, a gap in the broiler monitoring.
Once a month — am I ready?
Say "monthly review" and I'll give you the short version:
- Your milk quality — I'll read the monthly SCC / Bactoscan / antibiotic report and flag anything moving the wrong way for Arla.
- What's coming in the next 30–60 days from your wall calendar.
- A straight answer: you're audit-ready, bar these few things.
Quarterly / annual — the set pieces
I'll give you plenty of warning on each so nothing arrives as a surprise.
Quarterly
- Mobility scoring on the dairy herd (your plan says quarterly; Red Tractor wants it done and recorded, without setting a frequency).
- Johne's testing and plan check (your health plan sets the testing; quarterly is usual for dairy herds).
- The digester — RHI / ROC generation submissions and meter readings (the readings keep the payments flowing — miss them and they stop).
Annual
- Whole-herd TB test — you're in the High Risk Area, where herds are tested every six months unless they've gone six years or more without a breakdown. Yours has (last cleared April 2019), so it's once a year, in February. A breakdown would put you back on six-monthly tests. I'll start nudging well ahead.
- Veterinary Health Plan review and sign-off — one plan covering the whole livestock side.
- Body condition scoring at drying off and at calving (good practice; Red Tractor sets no frequency).
- Your audits — Arla 360 / Climate Check, Red Tractor Dairy, Avara / Red Tractor poultry. I'll have the evidence assembled before each.
- NVZ paperwork — last calendar year's records by 30 April; a nitrogen plan for each field before you spread on it; the risk map updated within 3 months of any change; the slurry storage check against 5 months' capacity; the digestate analysis folded into the plan.
- Poultry permit — the two annual returns (pollution inventory; N and P report) by 28 February. The manure management plan is reviewed every 4 years; the odour plan only after a change or a complaint.
- Parlour plant test and the vet-signed Selective Dry Cow Therapy protocol.
- GB Poultry Register annual confirmation.
What I'll chase you about
If you've left me running, these are the things I'll actively flag if they don't turn up when expected. I've kept it to what genuinely bites at audit — I'd rather be useful than naggy. Add or remove any:
- Broiler mortality not logged for two days running.
- Bulk tank temperature log gone quiet.
- A medicine given with no withdrawal date recorded against it.
- A calf born with the 27-day passport window running down and no application started.
- Cattle moved but the movement not reported inside the 3 days.
- A slaughter date booked with no pre-harvest Salmonella swab taken (~3 weeks before).
- TB test window approaching with nothing booked.
- Slurry or digestate spread but no NVZ record written up.
Tell me your own rule any time — "chase me if the medicine book's empty for three days" — and I'll set it.
Your say-so
This is a suggestion, not a regime. Nothing here runs until you're happy with it.
- ☐ Yes, put this into practice — I'll save it as your live routine and work to it from now on.
- ☐ Mostly — with these changes: ____
Status: PROPOSED — awaiting confirmation
(On confirmation this becomes ACTIVE — confirmed [date] and is saved as your routine.)
And it's never fixed. Add an enterprise, change buyer, expand the digester — just tell me, and I'll re-plan the routine around it.
Prepared by Agent for Farmers for Eardisland Court Farms · this routine is yours to change at any time.