Farm Smart: ‘Hill Farming Nearly Broke Me — Until I Changed How I Kept Records’

On the Isle of Arran, this farming family runs an upland system where a livestock farm management app is helping simplify records, improve efficiency, and reduce the stress of paperwork.

The farm is managed by husband and wife team Callum and Zara Lindsay, alongside family, while raising two young daughters. The business runs around 35 suckler cows and approximately 700 breeding ewes, including Cheviots and Blackface sheep, across disadvantaged hill ground and silage areas.

Like many livestock farms, they have always needed to keep accurate records. However, in a system where speed, practicality, and traceability are essential, paper-based record keeping created extra work and extra stress.

A demanding farm where efficiency really matters

This is a working hill farm in every sense. The ground is tough, livestock systems have to suit the land, and every decision has to support efficiency and profitability.

Breed selection is a major part of that. The family chooses females carefully to suit the ground and to improve the flock from one generation to the next. Good data matters because it helps identify the most prolific stock and the females worth retaining.

In a system like this, better information leads directly to better livestock decisions — and better livestock decisions lead to a more profitable farm.

Why a livestock farm management app made such a difference

One of the biggest reasons Herdwatch worked so well on this farm was simplicity. For Callum, who describes himself as highly dyslexic, the app offered a practical alternative to scraps of paper, notebooks, and trying to remember what had been written down.

Instead of writing records on bits of paper and explaining them later, information can be added straight into the app. That means records stay accurate and up to date while the real work of farming carries on.

For this family, that is the real benefit. They can stay compliant and keep good records without stopping being food producers.

Shared access, fewer missed steps

One of the strongest features for the family is that Herdwatch works across both phones. That means jobs do not depend on one person remembering to pass information on to the other later.

If one person is out with the sheep and gives a treatment, they can simply scan the medicine batch number there and then. The record goes straight into Herdwatch without a second step.

That shared access removes duplication and keeps the whole system far more accurate. It also saves time at the end of the day, because there is no need to go back through conversations, notebooks, or soggy bits of paper.

From folders and spreadsheets to one simple system

Before Herdwatch, the farm relied on a mix of notebooks, spreadsheets, folders, and handwritten medicine records.

Now, the records are stored in one place. Purchase dates, treatment volumes, medicine batches, and drug records are much easier to keep on top of. When farm assurance comes around, the information is already there.

Using a livestock farm management app means the family can trust the records they are keeping, not just for inspections, but for everyday livestock management too.

Fast enough to work in real life

A farm app only works if it is fast enough to keep up with the pace of real work. For this family, that is one of the biggest advantages of Herdwatch.

Calf registration, for example, is simple enough to do almost as quickly as sending a text. That matters when there are livestock jobs waiting and no one has time for complicated data entry.

The result is a system that supports the work, rather than slowing it down.

Better records without the burden of bookkeeping

For Callum especially, Herdwatch has changed the standard of bookkeeping on the farm. Without it, he admits that his records would not be where he would want them to be.

With Herdwatch, the farm can maintain a high standard of record keeping almost without feeling like that is what they are doing.

That matters in any business, but especially in a remote upland system where efficiency is everything.

A real game changer for livestock farms

For this Arran family, Herdwatch has become one of those tools they simply would not want to farm without. It has brought together traceability, simplicity, and speed in a way that genuinely fits the realities of livestock farming.

Whether it is medicine recording, sheep management, cattle records, or farm assurance paperwork, everything is easier when the information is accurate, factual, and already recorded.

You can explore more real farmer stories on our livestock farm management app case studies.