The feed room board, rubbed out again
The feed room has a big whiteboard: each horse's name, then scoops of this, a handful of that, a supplement, soaked or not, morning and evening. An owner texts the yard manager on Friday saying her horse's feed is changing from Monday after a conversation with her vet. The manager means to update the board over the weekend. On Monday, the groom making up the breakfast feeds follows the board as it is.
On Wednesday, the owner notices the new supplement tub is still full. Nobody changed the feed. Nobody is quite sure whose job it was to update the board, or whether the text was ever seen.
Why feed changes get lost
Feed boards are good at showing what is fed now. They are poor at changes, because the change has to travel from the owner to the board through at least one other person, and the board has no record of what it said yesterday.
- Owners send changes by text, WhatsApp, a note or a word in passing.
- Only certain people update the board, and they are not always on the yard.
- Changes with a future start date are hard to show on a board.
- Rubbing out and rewriting leaves no history.
- Supplements provided by owners run out without anyone telling them.
Why this matters to owners and the yard
Owners care about what their horse is fed more than almost anything else on a livery yard, and a missed change is the kind of mistake that makes them question the whole yard. Staff feel bad about it too, and often it was not their fault.
Without a history, disagreements about what was fed and when cannot be settled. And owner-supplied feeds and supplements running out leads to a scramble, a substitution nobody agreed or a missed feed.
Digital feed charts with dated changes
We build digital feed charts that owners can update and staff can follow.
- Each horse has a feed chart: feeds, quantities in your yard's units, supplements, soaking or preparation notes, and any feeds per time of day.
- Owners change the chart themselves from their phone, with a start date. The change shows as pending until then.
- The feed room screen, or a staff phone, shows today's feeds for each horse in stable order, with a highlight on anything that changed in the last few days.
- Staff tick each round of feeds done, so there is a record that it happened.
- Owner-supplied feeds and supplements can have a stock level entered, and owners get a reminder when the supply is getting low.
- Every change is kept, so you can see what the chart said on any day and who changed it.
| Need | Whiteboard | Digital feed chart |
|---|---|---|
| Owner changes feed | Text to the manager | Owner updates chart with start date |
| Staff see the change | If the board was updated | Highlighted on the feed screen |
| Future change | Hard to show | Pending until its start date |
| What was fed last week | Unknown | Full history of changes |
| Supplements running low | Found out when the tub is empty | Owner reminded in advance |
The feed chart shows what the owner has asked for. The yard does not choose or advise on feeds through the system; that stays between owners and their vet or nutrition adviser.
Feeds made up with confidence
The groom making up evening feeds sees each horse's current feed on a screen, with a small marker on the two horses whose feeds changed this week. The owner who changed her horse's feed on Friday sees it listed as starting Monday, and sees the tick on Monday morning's breakfast round.
The yard manager stops being the go-between for feed messages. When an owner's supplement is running low, they are reminded before it runs out.
Is your feed board keeping up?
- Owners send feed changes by text or note.
- Changes have been missed or started late.
- Only one or two people update the board.
- You cannot say what a horse was fed a week ago.
- Owner-supplied supplements run out unexpectedly.