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Feedlot · Offtake & dispatch

Name the cattle for every truck, months before it leaves.

Each animal is scored against every buyer order from its weight forecast, so the desk books the right head onto trucks weeks or months out. When a truck leaves, every animal on it is checked, and the kill sheet comes back onto the same animals.

Request access Explore the order book
A drawn feedlot loadout through one order’s truck. Seven weeks out, the office books 70 animals for the 66 the order needs, each scored for the truck’s day, and the order reaches the phone at the drafting gates. On the day, steers come up the lane from the crush: the gate turns two into the dispatch pen, steer 1048 among them, and sends one still inside its withholding on to the back pen for the next truck. The B-double backs up to the ramp and the mob walks up into its crates. The office records the departure, the check names nobody on the load, and the truck drives off. Three days later the plant’s kill sheet is read and each body goes back onto its animal.

From a working order book at a 10,000-head feedlot

On a 120-day Angus program, the cattle are already picked for the next 16 weeks of trucks. Of those cattle, 9 in 10 are still under the 600 kg the buyer wants. They’re booked on the weight they’ll reach by their truck’s day, and that forecast is typically within 20 kg.

From one feedlot’s order book and dispatches, July to October 2026. The 20 kg is the typical gap between the forecast and a later weigh it hadn’t seen.

Programs

Write a buyer’s spec down once, and every animal that fits it is found for you. The ones you keep for that buyer wait in its program pool until a truck needs them.

Office web

When the buyer changes the spec, it becomes a new version. The program pool and the open orders move to it, and the old version stays on record.

Orders

Fill each truck from the program pool, on the weight each animal will have on its day. Suggestions and Rebalance keep the trucks full as cattle are weighed, treated and moved.

Office web

Sharing

Share the program’s live status with the buyer, or the vendor. They open a link with a code sent to their email, and the figures move as cattle are weighed, treated and drafted.

  • Each booking shows the head promised, how many are ready and how many are still to find. Ready means named for the truck, and its day takes them.

  • Open a booking to see the cattle named on it. Each with its forecast weight on the day and its score.

  • Or send the same figures as a one-page PDF. The PDF and the link are drawn from one reading, so they never disagree.

  • Pens, owners, who you buy from and your notes are never sent. Nor the herd beyond the program’s own pool.

  • On a program with two buyers, each link shows one buyer’s bookings.

Shared link

At the crush

The crush scores each animal against the orders. With or without signal.

Crush

  • Tick the orders when the run is set up. Each animal on the scale is scored against each of them, on each order’s day.

  • Today’s weight moves the forecast. Where today’s records changed a score, the earlier one shows beside it.

  • A dose inside a truck’s withholding scores that truck zero. The card says when it clears, and an HGP dose rules out HGP-free orders for good.

  • Pinning stays with the desk. The crush only shows the scores.

  • Tie a run’s gates to an order from the desk afterwards. The board then counts what was drafted.

Your device

The truck

A load can’t leave with an animal that fails the check. Unless someone writes down why.

NFAS & audit

  • Recording the departure checks every animal on the load. Whichever screen it is recorded from.

  • It names each animal that fails, with the reason. Inside a withholding or export slaughter interval, short of or past the order’s days on feed, not drafted for the order, or HGP treated where the load must be HGP free.

  • A written reason lets the load leave. It is kept with who gave it, and an NFAS finding is raised.

  • An NVD that answers No to HGP holds the load. No reason lets an animal that isn’t HGP free leave on it.

  • The load keeps its weighbridge weights, its NVD and every head as they left. With its NFAS evidence: the docket, fit to load and loading density.

Office web

The kill sheet

The kill sheet comes back onto the same animals. Where the plant and the feedlot disagree, a person decides.

  • Read the plant’s feedback sheet from its PDF or spreadsheet. Each body is tied to its animal by RFID and to the load it came off.

  • Where the plant and the feedlot disagree, the body waits as a question. Sex, weight, HGP or the load. Nothing about the animal changes until someone settles it.

  • Loads with no kill sheet are listed with how long each has waited. The longest first.

  • A remittance advice is taken only when its own figures add up. So what the kill records is what the plant paid.

  • A program’s kills set the carcass weight and value shown on its next trucks.

Office web

When the plan doesn’t hold

Most weeks something moves. This is what happens when it does.

  • Move an order to another day and its animals are scored for the new one. The column shows any the new day refuses, with the reason.

  • A dose on a booked animal rules it off its truck. Suggestions moves it to the best truck that can take it, or back to the pool.

  • Readings over 60 days old are marked not confident. Suggestions asks for that pen to be weighed, and no pin moves.

  • Animals that went in place of the drafted ones are named. Each is listed on an NFAS finding by VID and EID.

  • Reverse a departure when a truck comes back. The animals return to their pens and class, and the trucks, weights and documents are kept.

  • A body the plant graded differently waits as a question. Nothing about the animal changes until someone settles it.

Offtake handles 29 more like these.

  • A buyer who changes the spec
  • An animal that no longer fits it
  • A program the buyer pauses
  • An order that’s cancelled
  • A truck short of head
  • An animal that scores better on another truck
  • Reserves held while another truck is short
  • Cattle not confident enough for their truck
  • Waiting cattle that outrank the pinned ones
  • A truck booked past the forecast
  • A truck’s day that passes before it leaves
  • An animal with no start day on feed
  • An animal over the days on feed a truck allows
  • An animal already on another truck
  • An animal in two programs’ pools
  • Cattle away on agistment or at a backgrounder
  • A tag that didn’t scan at loading
  • A second or third truck on one load
  • An animal that never went on the load
  • A load with no NVD
  • A load dated in the future
  • An animal sent out inside its withholding
  • An HGP-treated animal on a load that left HGP free
  • A plant that re-sends its sheet
  • A plant that changes its sheet’s layout
  • A body tied by ear tag or by the load
  • A body the yard still has on site
  • A body that was never at this feedlot
  • A body sent somewhere else

FAQ

Questions livestock desks ask.

Can we choose the animals ourselves?

Yes. Pin them from a pen, a search or a pasted list. The score ranks each animal for each truck’s day, and only the program’s compulsory conditions keep one off.

Animals
What does the dispatch check look at?

Withholding and export slaughter intervals, days on feed against the order, whether each animal was drafted for the order, and HGP where the load must be HGP free. It runs however the departure is recorded.

NFAS & audit
Can a load still leave if the check names an animal?

Yes, once someone writes down why. The reason is kept with who gave it, and an NFAS finding is raised. The exception is an NVD that answers No to HGP while an animal on the load isn’t HGP free.

Which kill sheets can it read?

A processor’s feedback sheet as a PDF with its text in it, as CSV or Excel, and MSA grading files. A scanned or photographed sheet can’t be read yet.

Works with
Can our buyer see their bookings?

Yes. Send them a one-page PDF, or a live link they open with an emailed code. It shows their bookings and the animals named on them, never your pens, owners, sources or notes.

Does it work with our weighbridge?

Weighbridge weights go on each dispatch, truck by truck. An iPhone can also read a Rinstrum or Mettler Toledo indicator as a weighbridge station. For now its tickets stay on that phone.

Works with

Another question? Email hello@paddockpath.com