Spade Farm
Release notes
Your herd software knows the cows. Your feed system knows the ration. Your processor and your books know the money. None of them talk to each other — so the full picture lives in a spreadsheet, if it exists at all. Spade Farm connects them and does the math every day.
Connects the herd, feed, processor, and accounting systems you already run
Integrates weather data for context
Calculates income over feed cost, breakeven milk, and feed efficiency — daily
Every number links back to the record it came from, so you can check it
No new hardware, no duplicate entry, no new place to key data in
You decide who sees what: a nutritionist, lender, or consultant sees only what you grant
Most dairies already have the data they need to manage margin. It just lives in four or five systems that don't talk to each other — herd software here, feed records there, milk checks in a folder, accounting somewhere else. Pulling a real margin number out of that takes someone a spreadsheet and most of a week, and by the time it's finished it describes last month.
Spade Farm connects those systems and keeps one daily picture of the operation: production, costs, and the margin between them. Built from your own records, not from benchmarks. Revenue and income over feed cost sit next to production, so a change in one is visible against the other.
What Spade Farm tracks
Milk per cow, components, SCC — daily
DMI, feed efficiency, ration cost
IOFC, breakeven milk
Revenue and costs from real accounting data
Spade Farm reads from the software you already run. Most farms connect some mix of:
Milk per cow, components, SCC — daily
Your feed management and ration software
Your cooperative or processor statements
Reports from your accounting system
Local weather and market pricing, added automatically
Spade Data normalizes all of it into one record per farm per day, so a feed cost from one system and a milk weight from another can sit in the same equation. That's the part that's genuinely hard, and it's the part we do.
If your processor runs Spade Enterprise, the same record rolls up to them — at the level of detail you permit, and nothing beyond it.
We are adding new integrations every day, please reach out to us if you are curious about our integrations list.
Income over feed cost is the fastest read on whether your ration is earning its keep — what's left from milk revenue after you pay for the feed that produced it.
Simple formula. Genuinely hard number to keep current, because the three inputs live in three different places: milk per cow in the herd system, milk price on the milk check, feed cost in the feed software — and the feed software's dry matter has to be reconciled against the pens the herd system knows about before any of it means anything.
That reconciliation is the work. Spade Farm does it, then recalculates every day.
Alongside IOFC you get breakeven milk price, feed efficiency, milk per cow, components, and somatic cell count — each with the month-over-month change, and each linked back to the record it came from. When a number looks wrong, you can check it instead of wondering.
Nobody, until you say so.
Sharing is role-based and permission-by-permission: a nutritionist, lender, consultant, or processor sees the view or data you grant and nothing beyond it. You can change or revoke access at any time, and every grant is logged so you can always see who has what. We don't sell your farm's data or commercialize it beyond your own use of it.
Farmers share data all the time. What they want is to share it with people they trust, on their terms. That's the model that drives Spade Farm
We handle the integrations — herd, feed, processor, accounting. Mostly a one-time setup on your side and nothing after that.
This is the step that matters most and the one only you can answer: which pen in the feed software is which group in the herd system. Every number downstream depends on getting it right. Easily handled through a shared spreadsheet and then a short verification call.
We walk the first week of data with you and confirm each number reads the way you'd expect — before you start making decisions on it.
Most farms go from first call to numbers they trust in 1-2 weeks, depending on how many systems you run and how complex your pen setup is.
Milk revenue per cow per day minus feed cost per cow per day. It's the quickest indicator of whether your ration is paying for itself, and it moves faster than any number on your P&L.
No. Spade Farm reads from the software you already run. There's nothing to buy and nothing to mount in the barn.
No. Your crew keeps working in the systems they know. Spade Farm reads from those systems — it isn't another place to key records in.
Most likely. See the full list of connected systems, and if yours isn't there, tell us what you run — we'll give you a straight answer on timing.
Only the people you grant access to, at the level you grant, for as long as you allow it. Every grant is logged and revocable.
Yes. Sites can be viewed individually or compared side by side.
Talk to us. Some spreadsheet setups we can work with today. We would be happy to work with you to develop a solution
It depends on herd size, how many systems you're connecting, and what you need beyond the core four data sources. It's a short conversation, not a form — talk to our team and we'll quote your operation.
Your Spade contact can walk through Spade Farm with your data and confirm which of your systems connect.
Advise dairies for a living? Nutritionists, vets, and consultants use Spade Consultant to see every client herd in one place, in the same units, calculated the same way. Contact us today for a preview demo of Spade Consultant.
