Okay, let\’s talk about this pig app thing. \”Pigs App\”. Seriously? That\’s the name? Sounds like something my tech-bro nephew would cough up after a caffeine binge. But look, I\’m sitting here at 4:37 AM, covered in… well, let\’s just say it\’s not perfume, nursing a lukewarm coffee that tastes like despair, and the weight of 87 sows due any minute is crushing my skull. Again. The feed spreadsheet is a mess, the vaccination dates are scribbled on three different calendars (one\’s actually on the back of an old feed receipt), and I swear I just saw the medication log for Penelope\’s litter doing a little dance before my bleary eyes. I\’m drowning in paper and post-its and pure, unadulterated pig chaos. So yeah, when this \”Pigs App – Free Pig Care Tracker for Farmers\” popped up somewhere – probably while doomscrolling at 3 AM trying to remember if I dewormed the weaners last Tuesday – I clicked. What\’s the worst that could happen? Another digital letdown? Join the club, pal.
Downloaded it. \”Free\” always makes my farmer-senses tingle. Nothing\’s free. They either sell your data, bombard you with ads until you want to throw your phone into the slurry pit, or it\’s just plain useless. But desperation is a powerful motivator. Setup was… surprisingly not awful. Didn\’t ask for my life story, just the basics: farm name (well, \”Johnson\’s Mud & Oinks\”, obviously), types of pigs (just commercial sows, growers, weaners for me), and boom. Main screen. Cleaner than my kitchen after a deep clean (which is never, but you get the idea). Herds listed. Tasks glaring at me. A big fat \”Record Event\” button. Huh.
First test: Recording a farrowing. Old way: Fumble for notebook in pocket, realize it\’s covered in… something, try to find pen that works, squint in the dim farrowing crate light, scribble time, number born alive, dead, mum\’s ID (hoping I read the ear tag right), maybe a note if something seemed off. Lose notebook for 3 days. Find it later, pages stuck together with… mystery substance. Great.
App way: Pull out phone (already in pocket, usually covered in similar mystery substance, but screen protector is a champ). Tap \”Record Event\” > \”Farrowing\”. Select Sow (Penelope, bless her tired soul). Tap-tap-tap: Time? 02:15. Born alive? 12. Stillborn? 1. Mummified? 0. Notes: \”Sow restless post-birth, checked umbilical cords, all good. Heat lamp adjusted.\” Done. Saved. It\’s… there. Instantly. Attached to Penelope. Like magic. Okay, maybe not magic. Just not terrible. A tiny flicker of… hope? Relief? Maybe just the caffeine finally kicking in.
Then came the real test: Meds. Always the meds. Trying to remember who got what, when, and how much. The withdrawal periods! Forget a withdrawal date and you\’re potentially tanking your whole batch, facing fines, feeling like a colossal idiot. Found the \”Medications\” bit. Logged a penicillin shot for a grower with a limp. Typed in the drug, dosage, route (IM, obviously), and bam – it calculated the withdrawal date right there. Highlighted it red. \”DO NOT PROCESS BEFORE [DATE]\”. It felt like the app was yelling at me, but nicely. Like a very organized, slightly passive-aggressive barn manager. I need that yelling. My brain is mush.
Started poking around more. Weight tracking? Could I? Dug out the rusty old weigh crate (digital scale mercifully still worked). Weighed a sample of weaners. Punched the average weight into the app for that group. Set a target weight. Now it shows progress. Simple. Visual. No more squinting at scribbled weights on the wall calendar trying to guess the trend. Feed inventory? Started logging the deliveries. Now it shows me roughly how many days of feed I have left per type. It doesn\’t magically order more (wishful thinking), but seeing \”Sow Pellets: 7 days\” in big numbers when I open the app… that stops the panic when you suddenly realize the feed truck hasn\’t shown up and it\’s Friday afternoon.
Here\’s the kicker, though. The \”Tasks\”. Oh boy. Setting recurring reminders. Like clockwork for vaccinations. Deworming schedules. Boar checks (don\’t ask). Service dates for sows. The app pings me. Relentlessly. At first, I hated it. Another alarm? My phone already buzzes with weather alerts, market prices plummeting, and my sister asking if I\’m alive. But… I didn\’t miss a single vaccination cycle for the last batch of growers. Not one. Usually, something slips. A crate gets overlooked. Not this time. The app nagged me until I did it. It felt less like a tool and more like a very persistent, slightly annoying, but ultimately lifesaving farmhand who never sleeps. Weird relationship developing here.
Is it perfect? Hell no. Let me vent. Trying to add a custom event? Sometimes feels like I need a degree in app design. \”Health Check\”? Okay, but I want to note specifically about a slight cough in Barn 3, Pen 7. Finding the right spot feels clunky. Offline mode? Crucial. My barns are Wi-Fi black holes. It says it saves offline and syncs later… mostly true. Mostly. Had one weird glitch where a feed delivery entry vanished after syncing. Poof. Gone. Minor panic ensued until I found the paper ticket backup (never fully trust tech, kids). Syncing itself? Sometimes feels slower than watching paint dry. Or grass grow. Or a sow finally decide to farrow. You sit there, phone in hand, waiting for the little spinny thing to stop, muttering \”c\’mon, c\’mon, I got pigs to feed!\”
And the name. \”Pigs App\”. Still makes me cringe a little. Sounds like a toddler named it. But you know what? After logging Penelope\’s latest litter (14 healthy piglets, thanks for asking), checking the withdrawal date on the antibiotics I gave that limper (clear in 10 days), and seeing the reminder pop up for the weaners\’ iron shot tomorrow… I kinda don\’t care what it\’s called. It\’s become this battered digital notebook that lives in my equally battered pocket, covered in the same grime I am, somehow holding the fraying threads of my operation together.
Do I love it? Nah. Love is for… well, not farm management apps. It\’s software. It frustrates me sometimes. I curse at the sync spinner. I wish it could predict pig prices or fix the damn automatic waterer in Barn 2. But do I rely on it? More and more, yeah. Against my better, grumpy judgment. That free little app, with its dumb name, has quietly, persistently, become indispensable. It hasn\’t made farming easy – nothing ever will. But it\’s shaved off a layer of the constant, low-grade panic. It remembers the stuff my sleep-deprived brain can\’t. It shouts about withdrawal dates. It nags me about vaccines. And right now, at this ungodly hour, covered in the evidence of life on the farm, that\’s worth more than any fancy, expensive system with a slick name. Even if I still think \”Pigs App\” is ridiculous. Alright, alarm\’s going off. Time to check Penelope again. At least the app already logged the first check.
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