How to Read Your Farm Dashboard — A Beginner's Guide to Data-Driven Farming
Your farm dashboard shows production, costs, health, and breeding in one place. Here is how to read it, what each section means, and what to do with what you see.
How to Read Your Farm Dashboard — A Beginner's Guide to Data-Driven Farming
You open the app. There are numbers, graphs, percentages, and trend lines. It looks like a lot. But every element on your farm dashboard exists to answer one specific question — and once you know which question, the dashboard becomes your most powerful management tool.
Here is a guided tour.
The top row: your farm at a glance
The top of the dashboard shows three to four headline numbers. These are the first things you see when you open the app each morning.
Total daily production. For dairy, this is total litres across all cows. For layers, total eggs collected. This number answers: "Did my farm produce what it should have today?"
Compare it to yesterday and to the 7-day average. If today is significantly lower than the 7-day average, something happened — investigate.
Active animals. Total milking cows, live layer count, or active sows. This is the denominator for all your per-animal calculations. It changes when you record a death, a sale, or a new addition.
Production rate. Litres per cow per day (dairy), HDP percentage (poultry), or ADG (swine). This per-unit metric is more meaningful than the total because it adjusts for herd/flock size.
Days since last alert. If this number is high, things are running smoothly. If there are active alerts, they show here with a red indicator.
The main chart: production over time
Below the top row is a line graph showing production over the last 30, 60, or 90 days. This is the most important visual on the dashboard.
The solid line is your 7-day rolling average. This is the trend — it smooths out daily fluctuations and shows you the real direction of your farm.
The faded dots are daily data points. Individual days bounce around. That is normal. Look at the line, not the dots.
The grey reference line (if available) shows the breed standard or your target. If your solid line is above the grey line, you are performing well. If it is below and the gap is widening, you have a problem.
How to read it:
- Line going up = improving (good)
- Line flat = stable (monitor)
- Line going down = declining (investigate)
- Sharp drop followed by recovery = temporary event (feed disruption, heat wave)
- Steady decline over 2+ weeks = systemic issue (health, nutrition, management)
The feed section
Shows daily feed consumption and feed efficiency.
Total feed (kg/day). How much your animals consumed today. Compare to the target for your herd/flock size.
Feed cost (KES/day). Daily feed expenditure based on the price per kilogram you have set. This number should be relatively stable day to day — large swings indicate measurement inconsistency or feeding changes.
Feed efficiency metric. Feed cost per litre (dairy), FCR (poultry), or feed cost per kg gained (swine). This is the ratio that tells you whether feed is being converted into product efficiently.
If feed consumption is steady but production is dropping, efficiency is worsening. If both feed and production are dropping proportionally, the animals may not be eating enough.
The health section
Shows health events and costs.
Recent events. A timeline of health events — treatments, vet visits, vaccinations, deaths — plotted by date. Clusters of events suggest a systemic problem.
Health cost this month. Total veterinary and treatment spend. Compare to previous months and to your revenue.
Upcoming. Scheduled vaccinations, deworming, or health checks based on the dates you have set.
The breeding section (dairy and swine)
Shows the current status of your breeding programme.
Animals due for heat check. Cows or sows in the expected heat window. These need extra observation today.
Animals bred, awaiting confirmation. Inseminated or served but not yet pregnancy-checked.
Confirmed pregnant. Animals with known due dates. Shows days to calving or farrowing.
Overdue for breeding. Animals past the voluntary waiting period that have not been bred. These are extending your calving/farrowing interval.
The financial summary
Shows revenue, costs, and margin.
Revenue this month. Total income from milk sales, egg sales, livestock sales — entered manually or calculated from production and price.
Costs this month. Feed, veterinary, labour, and other costs — entered as you go.
Net margin. Revenue minus costs. This is the number that matters most. If it is green, the farm is profitable. If it is red, you are spending more than you earn.
Cost breakdown. A simple chart showing what percentage of costs goes to feed (typically 60-70%), health (5-10%), labour (10-15%), and other (5-15%). If any category is disproportionately high, it points to where improvement efforts should focus.
What to look at daily vs weekly vs monthly
Every morning (2 minutes):
- Yesterday's total production
- Any active alerts
- Animals due for heat check today
Every week (15 minutes):
- 7-day production trend (line going up, flat, or down?)
- Feed efficiency trend
- Any health events this week
- Breeding status of animals due for service
Every month (30 minutes):
- Monthly production vs previous month
- Feed cost vs previous month
- Health cost vs budget
- Financial summary — profitable or not?
- Reproductive metrics — calving interval trend, conception rate
The first month is calibration
When you start using the dashboard, the first 30 days are about establishing baselines. You will not have trends yet — just data points accumulating.
Do not make major decisions based on the first week of data. Wait for 30 days of consistent recording. Then the trends become visible, the averages become meaningful, and the dashboard becomes a decision-making tool.
After 90 days, you will not be able to imagine managing your farm without it.
Your dashboard is waiting at shira.farm.