Some have got out
A gate left open or a fence down. Count what is still in the paddock, then check it against your last count in the app.
Livestock counter
Count the herd from the gate.
Pick the animal, take a few photos across the paddock, and get a head count with a dot on every animal it found. Cattle, sheep, horses and goats. No rounding up, no yarding, no counting under your breath.
Coming to iPhone and Android · from Origae
1 to 10 photosPer count
A dot on eachSo you can check it
First count freeThen about A$1
No accountNothing renews
Four kinds of stock
Pick the animal. The app knows what to look for.
Each animal gets its own instructions, because a mob of sheep and a few horses on a fence line are very different things to count.
CattleSpread out across a paddock, or bunched at the trough. 
SheepThe hardest to count: they bunch up and look alike. 
HorsesUsually few, often at the fence, easy to check by eye. 
GoatsBusy and close together, best caught in the yard.
The problem
The only count you trust is through the race.
A proper count means rounding up the herd, yarding it, and running every head through a gateway one at a time. That is a morning gone, and a stir up for the stock. So most days nobody counts. You look across the paddock, have a guess, and find out you were a few short when the truck is loading.
Count My Herd is the quick check in between. Use it when you think a few have got through a fence, before you buy stock off someone else, or when you just want a number without the round-up.
It does not replace a count through the race, and it does not pretend to.
When to use it
The quick count, for the days you need a number.
Before you buy a mob
Check the mob in front of you roughly matches what is on offer, before you truck them home and count them properly through the race.
The regular look over
Count the paddock every week or two. The app keeps the history and flags it when a count comes in short.
How it works
Three steps, and none of them is a round-up.
Pick the animal
Cattle, sheep, horses or goats. One kind per count. If the paddock holds two kinds, run one count for each.
Snap a few photos, left to right
Stand somewhere high if you can, then sweep across the herd from left to right, letting each photo overlap the last a little. One photo does a small herd; a big paddock can take up to ten. Use the camera, or pick photos you already took.
See the count, with a dot on every animal
You get a number, a range around it, and your photos back with a green dot on every animal the app counted. Zoom in and check the dots yourself. Save it to the paddock so the next count has something to compare with.
Using AI
What the model actually does with your photos.
Your photos go to Google's Gemini, a large AI model that can look at pictures. If Gemini returns nothing usable, OpenAI's model reads them instead. Neither one is asked to guess a number.
It marks every animal
These models get shaky when asked for a big number straight out. So the model puts a mark on each animal it can see, and our own code counts the marks. Those marks are the dots you see.
Three reads, not one
Every count is read three separate times. The middle answer is kept, and how far apart the three reads land helps set the range.
A range, not one number
You get something like "47, likely 44 to 50". The range is wider when the photos are harder to read, and the app tells you what made them hard.
It tells you when it's unsure
Big, tight flocks of sheep are the hardest: they bunch up, hide behind each other and all look alike. Distant stock and long grass are hard too. When that happens the app says so and widens the range instead of pretending.
The app
Big buttons, one number, made for the gate.
Built for a paddock, not a desk. Every button is sized for a thumb and the count reads at arm’s length in full sun.
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Get a better count
Four habits that make the count better.
- Get up high. A ute tray, a bank or a gate. Height shows the animals behind the front row.
- Keep the sun behind you. Facing the sun turns stock into dark shapes that run together.
- Sweep left to right. Overlap each photo a little, so nothing falls between two shots.
- Be quick. Take them all within about 30 seconds, before the herd moves.
Sheep bunched in a corner are hard for anyone to count. If you can, wait until they spread out to graze.
What else it does
Built for the paddock, not the office.
Paddock history
Name your paddocks, like "Back 40" or "River flat", and every count is saved with its date. Look back and see how the numbers have moved.
Missing stock alert
When a count comes in lower than the last one for that paddock, the app flags it, so you know to go and check the fences.
Camera or photo library
Take the photos in the app, or pick ones you already have. No signal in the back paddock? Take them now and run the count when you are back in range.
Cattle, sheep, horses, goats
One app for the four you are most likely to run. Pick the animal before each count so the model knows what it is looking for.
Five languages
English, Español, Português, Русский and Polski. A phone set to one of them opens in it straight away.
Nothing to sign up for
No account, no password, no email address. Your paddocks are tied to the app on your phone, not to your name.
What it costs
Your first count is free. After that, about a dollar.
Try it on your own herd before you spend anything. If it is worth having, each count after that costs about the same as a cup of tea at the saleyards, and less in a pack.
Your first count
$0
on every new install
- The full count, with a dot on every animal
- The range and what made the photos hard to read
- Saved to a paddock, ready for the next count
Every count after that
A$1.00
US$0.99 in the United States. The App Store or Google Play shows your local price before you pay.
- One count is one kind of animal in one paddock, from up to ten photos
- Packs of 10, 30 and 100 counts, cheaper per count, for when you check a lot of paddocks
- Paid through Apple or Google Play. We never see your card
A consumable, not a subscription. You pay for the counts you run. Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel.
You see the count is ready before you pay. The app reads your photos first, and asks you to pay only once it has a count to show you.
Read this before you rely on it
It's an estimate, not a head count through the race.
Count My Herd counts the animals it can see in your photos. It cannot count an animal hidden behind a tree, over a rise or behind another animal, and it can miss or double up where photos overlap. That is why you get a range and the dots, not one hard number.
Do not use it for:
- Selling, buying or settling by head count. Count them through a race or gateway for that.
- Official stock records. Movement records, stock returns, lender or insurance figures.
- Welfare checks. A count is not a look at each animal. Stock that is down or in trouble still needs you there.
The full detail is in the Terms of Service.
Questions
The things worth asking first.
How accurate is it?
Early days, and we say so. In our first check, 9 small groups of animals (1 to 7 head, one photo each) were all counted exactly. Big mobs and sweeps of several photos have not been tested yet. We will publish those results too, good or bad.
Until then, trust the range more than the single number, and check the dots. If a dot is sitting on a stump, or an animal has no dot, you can see it for yourself.
How do I get the best count?
Get up high if you can: a ute tray, a rise or a trough stand helps more than anything. Keep the sun behind you. Sweep from left to right, overlap each photo a little, and take them all within about half a minute so the herd has not moved much.
The closer and more spread out the animals, the better. A tight bunch a long way off is the hardest thing to count, for the app and for you.
Which animals does it count?
Cattle, sheep, horses and goats, one kind per count. It counts young ones too when they can be seen, but a lamb or calf tucked in behind its mother is easy to miss, which is one reason the range is there.
Is the first count really free?
Yes. Every new install gets one free count with everything included. There is no card to enter and nothing to sign up for. After that it is about A$1.00 a count, or less in a pack, paid through Apple or Google Play.
Is it a subscription?
No. Each count is a one off purchase. Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel. If you count twice a season, you pay for two counts.
What happens to my photos?
They are sent over an encrypted connection to the AI provider that reads them, and they are not kept on our servers once the count is done. We keep the count itself, not the photos.
The part we do not control: the AI provider may hold what it is sent for up to 30 days for its own abuse monitoring before deleting it. We say so rather than claiming photos are "never stored". Full detail in the Privacy Policy.
Do I need signal in the paddock?
The photos have to reach the model to be counted, so the count needs a connection. Out of range? Take the photos with your phone's camera and run them from your photo library when you are back in signal.
Do I have to make an account?
No. No name, no email address, no password. Your paddocks and counts are linked to the app on your phone, so you do not have to hand anything over.
First count free, then about a dollar
Walk to the gate, take a few photos, and know the number.
Count My Herd is on its way to iPhone and Android. Send us a note and we will tell you the day it is out.
Run stock and want to help? Send us a paddock photo with your own head count and we will test the app on it.