Record books
A finished record book, not a pile of data
Tidy records are only half the job. The county record book puts them into the shape your program’s book asks for — the same headings, the same categories, and the same order — as a PDF you can print, beside a detailed report of the whole year and CSV files if you would rather work in a spreadsheet.
Why there is a template layer at all
The data model behind this app was derived from real record books laid side by side, and this version draws eleven of them from five programs: Henry County, Tennessee; Johnston County, North Carolina; Georgia’s statewide market hog books; St. Lucie County, Florida, judged against a hundred-point rubric; and Michigan’s statewide Intermediate book.
They disagree with each other. Not on small things — on eligibility rules, on which expenses belong in which category, on whether reflection is a free page or a set of graded prompts, on what counts as an official weigh-in, and on whether one book holds one animal, two, three, or a whole herd.
That is the whole reason the app drives every book through a template rather than hard-coding one layout. Supporting another office is a new template file rather than new drawing code.
What goes onto the pages
- Exhibitor details and project identification
- Weigh-ins, with the initial weigh-in and fair check-in you marked
- Lifetime average daily gain and total gain
- Feed records and cost per pound of gain
- Categorized expenses and income
- Purchase, depreciation, break-even, and sale figures
- Work sessions with dates and hours
- Show entries, classes, and placings
- Health records and withdrawal times, where the book has a health page
- Your chosen photographs, in the frames the office drew
- Each in the office’s own order, and only where its form asks
Where the formats stand
Five programs and eleven books in this version, each laid out after the office’s own edition.
Henry County, Tennessee
Market goat, swine, lamb, and steer, one animal to a book. The level is ticked from the grade on January 1 of the project year, as the county’s own footnote says.
Johnston County, North Carolina
Goat, heifer, lamb, and hog. The goat, lamb, and hog books take two animals side by side, each column filled from its own animal’s records; the heifer book takes one.
Georgia (statewide)
Market Hog, in three books: grades 3–5, Junior, and Senior. Up to three pigs to a book, with records kept from purchase to the state’s January 29 deadline.
St. Lucie County, Florida
Market Steer and Market Swine, judged on a 100-point rubric. The county wants a handwritten final copy, so the app prints a work copy to draft from, and says so on every sheet.
Michigan (statewide)
The Intermediate market book, for beef, sheep, swine, goats, rabbits, poultry, and more. It holds a herd rather than one animal — every market animal of one kind — and costs feed as it was fed.
No book for your animal?
Dairy cattle have no county book in this version, and neither does a county not listed here. The detailed report and the spreadsheet files work for any animal, and a leader may point you to another program’s book.
Choosing your program’s book and seeing what it still needs is free. Making the county book is Pro, as are the detailed report and the spreadsheet files, and keeping your records never depends on your county being here.
Before you hand it in
A readiness check that flags gaps and fills nothing
Before you make a book, the app lists what it still needs: the pages you have to write yourself, the cover lines it holds nothing for, a table that runs past the office’s own sheets, or a feed with no price per pound in a book that asks for one.
What it will not do is write anything into those gaps. It points at the hole. You fill it. The pages a judge grades — the story, the reflection, and the letters — print as the office’s own questions over ruled blank lines, and that holds here as firmly as anywhere in the app.
A printed book is a convenience, not a certification
A county record book from the app is laid out after that office’s own edition, from what you entered. It is not produced, approved, or certified by the office, and it is not submitted on behalf of any fair, school, club, association, registry, or government program.
Some programs want the book handwritten — St. Lucie County is one — so check with your leader before you print one to hand in. Eligibility rules, deadlines, weigh-in requirements, and record-book formats are set by your own program and change without notice, and following them remains your responsibility.
Keep the records now. Make the book when it is due.
Free for up to two exhibitors, with one active animal each. Pro is a yearly subscription, and the App Store shows the price for your country.