Most medicine books fail on layout, not on effort. Here is a one-row-per-treatment template you can download, and how to fill in every column so it stands up to an assessor.
A workable medicine book template is one row per treatment with 18 columns: purchase details (date, product, batch, expiry, quantity, supplier), treatment details (dates, animal or group, number treated, reason, quantity given, who gave it) and the meat and milk withdrawal end dates. That covers the record-keeping regulations of the Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013 and the Red Tractor fields. Download the CSV template, delete the two EXAMPLE rows, and keep every row for five years.
There are two layers. The law sets the floor: regulation 19 of the Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013 requires the keeper to record, when a medicine is acquired for a food-producing animal, the product name and batch number, the date, the quantity and the supplier's name and address. At administration it requires the product, date, quantity, withdrawal period and identity of the animals treated. Regulation 17 adds that you must keep proof of purchase.
Red Tractor then asks for more. Its beef and lamb standard lists, for administration records, batch number, number of animals treated, date treatment finished, date the animal becomes fit for human consumption, who gave the medicine and the reason for treatment, and for purchases the expiry date as well. The dairy standard has the same list with milk added.
So the template is the sum of both. It does not repeat the field-by-field detail in our guide to what has to go in a Red Tractor medicine book. This guide is the how-to-fill-it-in half.
One row is one treatment, with the purchase details carried on the same row so the batch number links the bottle to the animal. You can split it into a purchase tab and a treatment tab if you prefer. The file is plain CSV, so it opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, and GOV.UK says records may be kept electronically if they are durable, permanent and available for inspection on request. This is the same layout, with two invented example rows:
| Date of purchase | Product name | Batch number | Expiry date | Quantity bought | Supplier name and address | Date of treatment | Date treatment finished | Animal ID or group | Number treated | Reason or diagnosis | Quantity given | Given by | Meat withdrawal | Meat end date | Milk withdrawal | Milk end date and time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02/09/2026 | EXAMPLE injectable for cattle | EX-BATCH-001 | 31/05/2027 | 1 x 100 ml | EXAMPLE vets | 22/09/2026 | 24/09/2026 | EXAMPLE cow tag | 1 | EXAMPLE mastitis | 20 ml a day, 3 days | EXAMPLE name | 28 days | 22/10/2026 | 84 hours | 27/09/2026 19:00 | EXAMPLE ROW |
| 10/09/2026 | EXAMPLE wormer for sheep | EX-BATCH-002 | 30/04/2028 | 1 x 2.5 litre | EXAMPLE supplier | 15/09/2026 | 15/09/2026 | EXAMPLE group, pen 3 | 10 | EXAMPLE worm control | 2 ml per lamb | EXAMPLE name | 14 days | 29/09/2026 | Not applicable | n/a | EXAMPLE ROW |
Fill these in the day the medicine arrives, from the box and the invoice, not later from memory. Product name should match the label exactly, because that is what lets anyone trace it to a datasheet. Batch number and expiry date are printed on the pack. Quantity is what you bought, such as one 100 ml bottle.
Supplier means name and address, which is on the invoice or the vet's delivery note. Keep that paper as well: regulation 17 requires proof of purchase for every medicine acquired for a food-producing animal, or documentary evidence of how it was acquired if you did not buy it.
The usual trap is a medicine the vet hands over from the car with no paperwork. Ask for a delivery note, or write down the batch yourself. Missing batch numbers are the first thing I would check on any sheet.
Date of treatment is the first dose. Date treatment finished is the last, which is what starts the withdrawal clock. For a single injection both dates are the same.
Animal ID or group is the ear tag, or a named group such as a pen. Number treated is a headcount, which is how a group row stays honest. Reason or diagnosis is a few words: mastitis, lameness, routine worming. Quantity given is the dose actually used, which may differ from the quantity bought.
Given by is the name of the person who administered it. If a vet gave it, regulation 18 says the vet must either enter their name, the product and batch, the date, the amount, the animals treated and the withdrawal period in your records, or give them to you in writing so you can. Photograph the vet's slip and fill the row the same day.
For routine group treatments, one row for the group can be enough. Our guide to medicine book requirements explains the group exception, and individual cases go on their own row.
There are four. Meat withdrawal is the period as read from the label or prescription. Meat end date is the date treatment finished plus that period. Milk withdrawal is usually in hours. Milk end date and time is the finish time plus those hours. If the animal is not a milking animal, write not applicable so nobody wonders whether you forgot.
Our guide to medicine withdrawal periods gives the sums, the cascade minimums and a worked date example. The point for the template is that both end dates are written down, on the day, in the row. Red Tractor lists the date the animal becomes fit for human consumption as a required field, and it is the one an assessor can check against an animal that went to slaughter last month.
If the end date is wrong because the figure was wrong, correct the row with a dated note rather than overwriting it. A visible correction reads better than a clean sheet that does not add up.
Treat it as a monthly job, not a pre-audit weekend. Once a month, sort the sheet by product and check for blanks in batch, finished date and the end dates. That is five minutes and it finds the problem while the person who did the job can still remember it. The annual health and performance review in the beef and lamb standard expects medicine administration records plus medicine and antibiotic collations, so a sheet you can filter by product makes the collation a count rather than a search.
Medicines you dispose of rather than use need a record too. Regulation 19 asks for the date, quantity and how and where it was disposed. The notes column does the job.
Keep the file and a copy somewhere other than the farm laptop. Five years is the minimum, set out in the medicine record retention rule, and regulation 20 says the clock runs from administration or disposal, even if the animal has since gone. Then see what assessors do with it in the Red Tractor audit checklist and the health plan and vet review guide.
FarmHQ is in pre-launch beta and drafts these rows from a photo of a label or vet invoice for you to confirm. A spreadsheet works fine until the paper piles up.
Yes. Our CSV template has one row per treatment and 18 columns covering purchase, treatment and meat and milk withdrawal end dates. It opens in Excel or Google Sheets. Delete the two EXAMPLE rows before use, and take withdrawal figures from your own datasheet or prescription, not from the examples.
Yes. Red Tractor requires that the required fields can be demonstrated, and the law allows records on paper or electronically as long as they can be produced on request. A spreadsheet works if it is backed up, readable and complete. Keep it five years.
On purchase: product name, batch number, date, quantity and supplier. On administration: product, date, quantity, withdrawal period and identity of the animals treated. Red Tractor adds expiry date, number treated, date finished, date fit for consumption, who administered and the reason for treatment.
Not for routine group treatments such as vaccinations, which can be recorded once against the group with the number treated. An animal treated individually for a specific problem needs its own row with its own reason and its own withdrawal end dates.
At least five years from administration or other disposal of the medicine, even if the animal has died, been sold or gone to slaughter in that time. Keep a backup copy, and make sure someone besides you knows where it is stored.