Blog · Farming

Running a small dairy's milk round and herd book without the notebook

26 October 2026 · 6 min read

A small dairy runs on two books. One says who gets how much milk, and on which days. The other says which animal is due, which one is dry, and which one was treated last week. Both usually live in a notebook, and both are easy to get wrong on a busy morning.

The delivery book is mostly standing orders

Almost every household on a milk round wants the same thing every day: two packets of 500 ml, or one litre on weekdays and two on Sunday. That is a standing order, and it is the thing worth writing down once rather than every morning.

What changes from house to house is rarely the product. A dairy we work with told us this early: households differ in the size of the packet and how many, not in whether they want milk or curd. Curd, paneer and ghee are real, but occasional. They belong on the list when you actually sell them, not in every customer's order from day one.

The exceptions are where the notebook fails:

• One day different. Guests are coming, so an extra litre today. Nothing else changes.
• A week away. No milk Monday to Friday, then back to normal.
• A change for good. From now on, one litre instead of 750 ml.

The first two should not touch the standing order at all, or someone forgets to change it back. Keeping "this date only" separate from "from now on" is most of what a delivery book has to get right.

The round: in order, and on the driver's phone

A round is a list of houses in the order you drive past them. Most dairies keep that order in the driver's head, which works until the driver is sick. A pin for each house, and a round built from where the van starts, puts that knowledge somewhere the next driver can use it.

On the road, the driver needs very little: the next stop, the houses after it in order, a way to open the map app already on the phone, and two buttons, delivered and couldn't deliver, with room for a note ("gate locked, left with neighbour"). By the end of the morning, the office knows what actually happened instead of what was supposed to.

The herd book: due dates, milkings, health

The other book matters just as much and gets kept less carefully. Three things are worth recording for each animal:

• Breeding. The day she was served, and what happened: pregnant, empty, aborted, calved. From the service date, the due date follows. A cow carries about 283 days and a buffalo about 310, so a buffalo's due date counted the cow's way is a month early.
• Milking. Morning and evening yield, per animal. A yield that drops for a few days is often the first sign that something is wrong.
• Health. Vaccinations, deworming, treatments and check-ups, each with the date the next one is due. After a treatment, the date her milk can go back in the can.

The withdrawal date is the one that costs money when it is forgotten. A treated animal's milk going into the round is a problem for the customer and for the dairy's name.

What SmallFarm.app does with this

We built SmallFarm.app around these two books, starting from a real dairy's round:

• A new dairy starts with three products, the three packet sizes: 500 ml, 750 ml and 1 litre. Add curd or ghee when you sell them.
• Customers have a pin on the map and a standing order. Each day's deliveries are made from those orders, and a single date can be changed without touching the order.
• The round is built from your start point and handed to a driver, who signs in with a phone number and a PIN you give them. No email, no Google account.
• The herd book keeps cows and buffalo, each with their own gestation, a milking sheet for twice a day, and health records. Picking a common vaccine such as FMD, HS or BQ fills in when the next dose is due. Your vet's schedule wins wherever it differs, and you can change any date.
• It works in English and twelve Indian languages, including Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali.

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