Sheep flock records with no internet
Short answer: keep one record per sheep on a laptop, with lambings, weights and health as lists that point at it. It is searchable, it works in the shed with no signal, and any one sheep prints as a page. If the records must be on your phone with no signal, read where this is honest first.
On BackYardHerds a shepherd described their paper system: hanging folders for current sheep, past sheep, breeding and lambing, health and receipts, with record sheets “4 pages long per animal”. The reply came from someone who wanted the opposite. They had “always preferred to keep records via the computer where the info is searchable”, could not get a flock program's trial to download, and added that it “would be nice to be able to print out a report for any individual animal”. (The thread, February 2014, read 3 November 2026.)
Both of them want the same thing: the folders, but searchable, and a page per sheep when you need one on paper.
How the lists fit together
| List | What one row is | Points at |
|---|---|---|
| Sheep | One sheep: tag, name, breed, born, bought or sold, and its dam and sire | Other sheep |
| Lambings | One ewe lambing on a date: how many, sexes, birth weights, any help given | The ewe |
| Weights | One weigh-in on a date | A sheep |
| Health | One worming, vaccination, hoof trim or treatment, with the product and when the next one is due | A sheep |
Opening a sheep shows every lambing, weigh-in and treatment for it. The dam and sire are links to other sheep, so a ewe's page also lists the lambs that name her as dam. Past sheep stay in the list with a sold or died date, so nothing has to move to a different folder.
Records that live on the laptop
Bionic Forms builds a small app from a spreadsheet or a sentence, such as “records for my sheep: lambing, weights, worming, hoof care and pedigrees”. Our desktop app for Windows, macOS or Linux keeps a full, encrypted copy on the computer. With no connection at all you can:
- Log a lambing, a weigh-in or a worming with the date and a note.
- Search and sort: every ewe that needed help lambing, every sheep due for a trim.
- Print one sheep as a page, with its lambings and treatments (how printing works).
- Add a field you track and nobody else does, like a body condition score or a fleece weight.
When the laptop finds a connection again, the changes go up by themselves, so a second computer, or a phone browser with a signal, sees the same records.
Getting a spreadsheet in
If you already keep a spreadsheet, drop it on our home page. A workbook with a sheet for the flock and a sheet for lambings asks which one to start with; when the first is in, the others are offered as buttons. When the lambing sheet has a column naming the ewe, each row is linked to her. Free covers unlimited apps and 10,000 entries per app.
Where this is honest
- No offline phone app yet. Offline is the desktop app only. On a phone, ours runs in the browser and needs a signal. If you record at the pen on a phone with no signal, an offline phone app made for sheep will suit you better today.
- No printed pedigree chart. Dam and sire are links you can follow, one generation at a time. There is no family-tree printout.
- No formulas. Weight gain and “next due” are not worked out for you. Type them in.
- Set it up while you have a connection. The AI that builds the app runs on our server. Using it afterwards does not need one.
- We are small and pre-launch. We say plainly which parts are not finished, and your data can always be exported again.
Build it now. The box already says what this page is about. Change it if you like.
About 25 seconds. No signup to see the result.
Already keep a spreadsheet? Drop it on the home page instead.
Or open the live demo first. No email.
Rather not do it yourself? Tell us what you track and we will build a working version and show you. No fee.
More: goat records with no internet and printing a record, or horse health records.