Local guides · Post 11
The vet and medicine records a Ceredigion farm still keeps by hand
For Ceredigion farms that still keep the medicine book and vet records by hand: what the paperwork costs, and how to keep it ready to produce.
A spring visit to a holding near Lampeter ended, as it always does, with a line in the medicine book. The treatment went in, the bottle went back in the cabinet, and the day moved on. That works until someone needs one entry from two years ago, or an inspection asks for the full picture of what was given, to which animal, and when.
The records are kept because they may be asked for. Nobody enjoys the writing up. On a farm between Aberaeron and Tregaron the book is a legal record and a working reference, and it is usually filled in after a long day rather than during it. A visit near Newcastle Emlyn adds its own notes, and a movement through Cardigan market adds dates that have to line up later.
That is the loop: the medicine book and everything that goes with it, kept because it may have to be produced.
The maths (a sketch, not a client figure)
The honest position is that no two farms keep records the same way, so this is a sketch and not a client figure. Assume £30 an hour, which is an assumption for the sum only. Assume an hour a week to write up treatments and keep the dates in order.
- 1 hour a week writing up and tidying the book
- × £30 an hour (assumed) = £30 a week
- × 46 working weeks (assumed) = £1,380 a year
Add the day before an inspection, spent hunting for entries that were never written up, and the figure grows. The draft step does not remove the record. It removes the catching up.
Score it: the three checks
- Hours. Around an hour a week, and more in the weeks with a visit or a movement. That is enough to clear the bar.
- Repeat. A new starter could run it from one written page: what is recorded and when the withdrawal date is checked. If the page can be written, the drafting can be handed over.
- Risk-if-wrong. A missing or wrong entry is a legal and food-chain risk, not a small slip. That is why a person checks every one.
Try one thing this week (free)
Write the one page that says what goes in the book after a treatment: the animal or group, the product, the batch number, the date, the dose and the withdrawal date. Use it for the next visit. By Friday you will know whether the page is complete, or whether something is still living in your head.
Where a person stays
Software can prepare the entry from the notes and dates already on the farm, and it can flag a withdrawal period that is still running. A named person reads it, corrects it and signs it off. The dose and the decision about an animal's status stay with the person who knows the farm. Financial, compliance and legal work stays approval-only, always. Nothing is sent or filed unchecked.
FAQ
The person who does the treatments owns the entry, even if someone else types it up. One named person is accountable for each record.
It can calculate and flag them from what you enter, but it cannot know the label or the animal's history. A person checks the result before it counts.
The notes become a draft the same day, while the details are fresh. Leave it a week and the batch numbers and dates are much harder to rebuild.
It can, as long as the records are kept by holding. Which holding, which group and which dates are decisions for the person entering them.
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