Feed Mode: Daily Feeding from the Cab

Feed Mode is Ranch.Bot's daily feeding workflow. You program your rations once, and every morning the Today board shows what each group needs. Load the mixer, record what actually went in, mark what each pen got, and the records write themselves. It works with no signal and syncs when you're back in range.

Feed is the biggest line item on most operations. Feed Mode keeps the plan and the actuals side by side, so you can see when a pen is drifting off target before it costs you.

A ration is a recipe in pounds per head per day: for example, 3 lb alfalfa hay + 2 lb whole barley. You build it once on the Rations page and assign it to one or more groups, each with its own feedings-per-day count and an optional label like "AM" or "PM".

Two things to know:

  • Per head per day is the basis. Feed Mode computes each batch from the group's live headcount, so when animals move between pens the math adjusts itself. There are no batch totals to maintain.
  • Load order matters. Put the limiting ingredient (usually the bale) first. The rest of the batch rescales off whatever loads first (more on that below). You can reorder ingredients at any time, including mid-load, and the new order becomes the ration's default.

You can also ask your AI assistant to set a ration up: "we feed the ewes 3 pounds of alfalfa and 2 of barley, twice a day." The assistant builds the ration, but its group assignments stay inactive until you activate them on the Rations page. Nothing feeds off the board without your say-so. The assistant only structures what you've already decided; it never formulates or balances rations. That's a job for you and your nutritionist.

1. The Today board

One card per active assignment: the ration, the group, today's target, and how much has been fed so far. Tap Feed to start a load. If several pens eat the same ration, pick all the pens this mixer load serves. The batch target comes from the combined headcount.

2. Load

Ingredients come up one at a time, in load order, with a big "Load to" number, that's the reading your scale head should show when the ingredient is in. Type the actual reading and confirm. The app does the subtraction; you never do mixer math in the cab.

The recipe bends to the bale. Bales never weigh exactly what the recipe says. When the first ingredient goes in heavy or light, every remaining ingredient's target rescales proportionally, and the screen shows the batch percentage ("Batch: 102.4% of recipe"). The feeding stays on-recipe; nothing is wasted chasing a number the bale already decided.

A few cab realities the screen handles:

  • Out of an ingredient? Skip it. It drops out of the rescale math instead of dragging the batch.
  • Fat-fingered a weight? Tap the row and fix it; the batch recomputes.
  • Tare between ingredients? Flip the "I tare between ingredients" toggle and enter each ingredient's own weight instead of the running total.

3. Deliver

Mark what each pen got. A single pen is one tap ("Delivered all"). A split load prefills each pen's share by headcount. Adjust to what actually came off the mixer.

4. Done

The board updates, a tone confirms the save (your eyes are on the loader, not the screen), and each delivery is written as a feed record on the group, so "what did Pen 4 get last month" is just a records search. Undo last feeding reverses the whole thing, whether or not it has synced yet.

If a group went over target yesterday, its card says so and suggests a smaller load today: "Fed 106% of target yesterday. Today's suggested load is 1,420 lb." It looks back one day only; it's a course correction, not a running ledger.

Tractor cabs are dead zones, so Feed Mode treats the cab as the source of truth:

  • The ration plan is cached on the device whenever you're online, with a "plan synced" stamp on the board.
  • Every confirmation is saved to the device immediately. A dead battery or closed app loses at most the one number you hadn't confirmed. Reopen and tap Resume.
  • When signal returns, feedings sync automatically (or tap Sync now). Each feeding shows its sync status, and re-sending is always safe, the server ignores anything it has already seen.

Feed Mode records as-fed weights. It doesn't do dry-matter conversion, nutrient balancing, or feed inventory. And the assistant won't tell you what or how much to feed. Ration formulation stays with you and your nutritionist.