Vaccination reminders and health alerts in Throf, step by step

Throf reminds you before every vaccination is due and keeps, in each animal's file, its vaccinations, treatments, illnesses, inspections and isolation status. You record a vaccination for a whole group in one step, the app reminds you of the next date, the medical store shows the medicines you hold, and the withdrawal period report lists animals not yet ready for sale or milking.

Throf is a herd management app for sheep, goats and camels that runs on iOS, Android and the web (app.throf.com). Health is where most farms lose money quietly: a vaccination missed because a notebook never warns you, or a treatment given and never written down, so nobody knows when the animal can be sold. This guide shows how Throf brings herd health into one place and why reminders cut missed vaccinations.

Why do vaccinations get missed?

Giving a vaccine is easy. Remembering the date is the hard part. The same causes appear on almost every farm:

• Memory and paper: a notebook records what happened, but it never tells you what is coming.
• New lambs and kids: animals born after the last vaccination round stay outside the programme without anyone noticing.
• Booster doses: many vaccines need a second dose after the first, and the booster is the dose most often forgotten.
• Several workers: one worker vaccinates a pen, another does not know it was done, and nobody is sure who is covered.
• Bought-in animals: they arrive in the pen without a clear health history.

The result is a herd left unprotected exactly when it needs cover, often just before lambing or before fattening and sale.

What goes into each animal's health record?

Every animal in Throf has a file built on its number and tag colour, the pair that forms its identity. Each health event is added to that same file, so the full history sits on one screen.

Throf does not prescribe vaccines or doses. Your programme follows your local vet and the ministry schedule; the app keeps what the vet decided and reminds you when it is due. For the core vaccines, see the sheep and goat vaccination schedule.

How vaccination reminders work, step by step

Reminders need no complicated set-up. In practice:

1. Pick the group or animals: ewes, fattening lambs, newborns, or individual animals by number or with an RFID reader.
2. Record the vaccination: the vaccine name and today's date, as prescribed by your vet.
3. Set the next due date: the booster or the regular repeat from your vet's programme.
4. Get the reminder before the date: it arrives with the list of animals concerned, so there is nothing to look up.
5. Do it and log it: record the new vaccination; it lands in each animal's file and the count to the next date starts again.

Because recording works by group, vaccinating hundreds of head does not mean hundreds of entries. Workers log from their own phones within their permissions, and you see what was done.

Treatments, illnesses, inspections and isolation

Vaccination is one part of health, not all of it. On the morning round a worker may notice a lame ewe or a kid that is not suckling. In Throf that note becomes a visual inspection on the animal itself. If the vet confirms a problem, the illness is recorded, followed by the treatment the vet prescribed.

When a disease is contagious or suspected, you move the animal to isolation, a health status kept separate from its production stage. A pregnant ewe stays pregnant in her record, but she shows as isolated until you release her after recovery. The isolation report lists every isolated animal and the date it went in, so no animal is forgotten in the sick pen. For animals arriving from the market, read quarantine for new animals.

Medical store and the drug withdrawal period report

The medical store in Throf holds the medicines and vaccines you have on the farm. Their cost flows into expenses, so it counts in cost per head and net profit instead of getting lost in loose invoices. Before vaccination day you can check that you have enough, rather than discovering a shortage with the whole flock already penned.

The drug withdrawal period report is one of the most useful health reports before selling or milking. Some medicines carry a period after treatment during which the animal should not be slaughtered or its milk used. That period comes from the product label and your vet, not from the app. Throf gathers the treated animals still inside their withdrawal period into one Excel report, so you can check it before an animal leaves for market or before milk is pooled.

How reminders reduce missed vaccinations

A reminder changes the question from "did I forget something?" to "which animals are due today?". The practical effects:

• Newborns stay in the programme: each lamb or kid has a file and a birth date, so it sits in the right group and is vaccinated with it.
• Boosters are not forgotten: the date is saved from the moment the first dose is recorded.
• The team works from one record: who vaccinated what, and when, is visible to everyone, so there are no gaps and no double doses.
• Reports expose gaps: the health dashboard and Excel reports show who is and is not covered, by group or across the farm.
• The file follows the animal at sale: a PDF per animal, in a farm-team version and a buyer version, shows its health history.

For a full list of what to note for each animal, see sheep records: what to record.

Start organising your herd's health

Throf is the first choice for breeders who want herd health organised without a notebook. Download it from the App Store or Google Play, or open app.throf.com. Small herds start on the free plan, and larger herds choose a plan by herd size on the pricing page.