Herdwatch, a farm management software company used by more than 18,000 farms in the UK and Ireland, has released its flock management application, Flockwatch, in the U.S.

Flockwatch’s purpose is to help sheep farmers manage their flocks via a software application, potentially reducing paperwork and giving farmers more data on their sheep.

“It’s a good, innovative product,” said Kathleen Proffitt, a sixth-generation farmer who has been using the app for several months.

Proffitt raises about 450 registered Katahdin hair sheep on a Tennessee farm her family established in 1850.

As a well-established Katahdin breeder, Proffitt must keep detailed records on her breeding stock’s Estimated Breeding Values through the National Sheep Improvement Program. Keeping these records is time-consuming, said Proffitt: “I have to write, write, write, write, write.” She hopes digitizing part of the process with Flockwatch will save time long-term and provide her with more data.

Herdwatch created its Flockwatch app last March. Initially, it was only available in the UK and Ireland, but in November, the company released Flockwatch in the U.S. and Canada.

According to sheep associations, the app has gained popularity quickly, and The Shepherd magazine reports more than 6,000 flocks are on it. High-profile sheep farmers who use the app, including Sandi Brock in Canada and Cammy Wilson in Scotland, have boosted farmers’ awareness of Flockwatch on social media.

The app pairs with most Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and can connect to an electronic identification (EID) reader, although Conor Vaughan, who oversees marketing for Flockwatch in North America, said farmers should check with Herdwatch to make sure the brand of ear tags they use can pair with the app.

The app enables sheep farmers to manage their flocks as groups or individual sheep, capture medicine records, track average daily weight gains, record lambing, track ewe performance, map their farm with satellite imagery and keep paddock records.

The Flockwatch app costs $79 for the first six months. After that, prices vary by plan.

Proffitt, the sheep farmer, said the app has pros and cons.

She said it helps her more efficiently track weight, number of progeny and other data.

Although it has taken her time to connect 116 breeding sheep so far to the app, she predicts it will be “a big timesaver” in the long run.

Proffitt appreciates that when she gave the company feedback about an aspect of the app that did not work for her, the company responded by updating the app.

Flockwatch also has drawbacks, said Proffitt.

The app is supposed to be able to scan the bar codes of vaccine bottles, but Proffitt said she has not been able to scan U.S. barcodes, which she suspects is a translation problem since the app was developed in Europe.

She has also found that setting up the app for each sheep is initially time-consuming.

Finally, she said the app requires her to do too much manual labor in inputting the weights of sheep. Proffitt would prefer a more automated approach.

Nevertheless, she said the app’s benefits outweigh its drawbacks for her.

“I’m sticking with it,” she said.