Buaile - Livestock Tracking Platform with Medicine Withdrawal Locks
Livestock Records Platform for an Irish Beef and Sheep Group
Designed and built a clickable farm office console for a group of five suckler beef and sheep farms in County Galway: one animal register for every herd and flock, withdrawal locks that block the sale of treated animals, AIM notification status on every birth and movement, and sale lots that cannot go to the mart until every pre-sale check passes.
Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.
Impact
Herd dashboard, animal register, animal detail, withdrawal locks, sale lots and lot detail. Every one of the 85 demo animals opens its own record with timeline, health, weights and movements.
Out of withdrawal on the sale date, no restricted herd, cattle births registered with AIM, on this farm, no duplicate tags and a signed declaration. Send to mart stays disabled until all six pass.
Lock end is the last dose plus the withdrawal period confirmed from the label or the vet's prescription, plus the client's 2-day buffer. A lock cannot be lifted by hand, and locked animals cannot be added to a sale lot.
Across 5 farms and 9 official herds and flocks, with 8 medicine products, 11 treatments setting 16 active locks, 12 sale lots and one restricted cattle herd.
The Problem
Coolrua's five farms, with about 620 suckler cows and 1,400 breeding ewes, each kept records their own way: a paper herd register in a kitchen drawer, a medicine book on the shed windowsill, calving dates in a diary and weights on a scale head nobody downloaded. Before every mart day the office phoned each farm to ask about recent treatments, and twice in one season an animal was drafted for sale while still inside its withdrawal period.
Our Solution
Buaile gives the group one animal register that serves as each farm's official herd and flock register. Every treatment carries its batch, dose and confirmed withdrawal period and sets a lock that blocks sale until it ends, every birth and movement shows its AIM notification status, and a sale lot only goes to the mart once its pre-sale checks pass.
The Challenge: Selling Only What Is Safe to Sell
Irish livestock farming runs on official tags, DAFM's AIM system, EU medicine and animal health rules and the Bord Bia assurance audit. Each farm has to keep its records straight in a yard or field with no signal, and the office has to know before mart day which animals can actually be sold.
Records Spread Across Five Farms
Registers, medicine books, calving diaries and scale heads were kept differently on each farm. Tag numbers were copied by hand from animals in a crush, often with a digit wrong, so the same animal could appear under two numbers.
Withdrawal Periods Nobody Could See
The meat withdrawal period comes from each product's label for that species and route, or from the vet's prescription when a medicine is used off-label under the cascade, which can mean a longer period. With treatments in a paper book, the office relied on phone calls to catch treated animals before a sale.
Notifications With Different Owners
Calf births must be registered with DAFM within a set period and cattle moves between herds are generally notified to AIM, while moves through a mart or into a slaughter plant are generally recorded by the mart or plant. Stock from a restricted herd must be held back, and the office had no single view of what was outstanding.
Audits and Performance From Scratch
Regulation (EU) 2019/6 requires the product, batch, date, quantity, animals treated and withdrawal period for every medicine used. Pulling those and the movement records together for the Bord Bia audit took a week, and nobody could say which farm had the best daily liveweight gain.
Our Approach: From Farm Rules to a Clickable Console
Spec and Rules Research
Mapped 7 user roles and 46 screens across an offline-first mobile app, the farm office console, a vet portal and a mart partner portal, with the data model for animals, herds, births, weighings, movements, AIM notifications, medicines, batches, prescriptions, treatments, withdrawal locks, sale lots, deaths, paddocks and a versioned client policy. Wrote down the rules the design follows: AIM identification and movement, EU Animal Health Law, the Veterinary Medicines Regulation, animal by-products disposal, the Bord Bia scheme and GDPR.
Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit
Built 6 key screens of the farm office console on a production dashboard kit: the herd dashboard with head count by farm, calving and lambing against due dates and a needs-attention list, the animal register with search by tag and bulk actions, animal detail with lock and restriction banners and an audited Correct record flow, withdrawal locks with the treatment behind each, and sale lots with the pre-sale checklist, declaration and sale result. A farm switcher scopes every view.
What a Production Build Adds
The offline mobile app with Bluetooth EID wands (Datamars, Allflex or Shearwell) and weigh scale indicators, a local outbox and set rules for offline conflicts. Integration with DAFM AIM through agfood.ie (direct access subject to DAFM approval), ICBF HerdPlus, NVPS e-prescriptions where access is granted, online mart bidding, Mapbox maps and Met Éireann weather. The vet portal by consent, the mart portal, role-based sign-in and a tamper-evident audit log. GPS collars only if Coolrua confirms their use with its vet first.
Why It Works: The Lock Comes Before the Lorry
Locks Are Calculated, Never Typed
Withdrawal periods are never hard-coded. Each treatment stores the period confirmed from the label or prescription, the lock adds the client's buffer on top, and the withdrawal locks screen shows the source of every period. Drafted animals that are still locked are listed first.
A Lot Cannot Leave Until It Is Clear
Each lot shows a checks score such as 4 of 6, the result for every animal and the date each lock ends. Send to mart is enabled only when every check passes and the farm manager has signed the declaration, and the sold lot records prices, buyer herds and the movement created.
Every Animal Explains Its Status
An animal's record opens with a red banner when it is locked and an amber one when its herd is restricted, and Add to sale lot is disabled with the reason. Births and movements show whether they are confirmed with AIM and the reference, and corrections ask for the old value, new value and a reason.
Built for the Office's Morning
The dashboard lists what needs action: locked animals in open lots, births not yet notified, rejected notifications, expiring medicine batches, overdue second doses and the restricted herd. Tag numbers read the way Irish farmers read them, with the full 15-digit EID beside them.
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Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
Contact Us
Locations
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
© 2026 - Copyright. All Rights reserved Oceanlab