Ellen Schlechter featured in South Dakota Magazine for creating “The Calving App”

Technology from the farm makes calving season simpler

Editor’s note: Ellen Schlechter, a senior at Faulkton High School, was featured in the September/October 2016 issue of South Dakota Magazine. The story on page 12 features how Schlechter created the calving app available for iPhone in the App Store and from Android in the Google Play Store.

South Dakota Magazine

Keeping track of cattle is now as easy as a few taps on a smartphone screen, thanks to the dogged determination of a Faulkton High School senior.

Ellen Schlechter lives on a farm between Miller and Faulkton. She says her family had been searching for a phone app because between two pastures and several people handling the herd, their traditional calving book was always missing. They thought they found a winner, but discovered the app was unable to track many of the things they wanted and could not cross platforms between iPhones and Androids. “So my family literally told me to make it happen,” she said.

She experimented with writing code, but had little time to learn it after farm and schoolwork. Then she found a program that simply allowed her to enter the features she wanted, and soon “The Calving Book was created.

Farmers can track calving, breeding, pregnancy and weaning on the app. Since its release in October of 2014, over 6,200 accounts have been created. Schlechter continues to tweak the app based on feedback from users.

She won a Big Idea competition last year for the development. She is the daughter of Terry and Mary Schlechter of rural Orient.

Article Courtesy of the Faulk County Record.