Bulk Updates to Animals in a Group
If you read our article on Creating Livestock Groups, you know that one of the main benefits of animal groups is your ability to apply the same action to multiple animals at once. Whether you are applying treatments, moving a herd to a different grazing field, updating breeding statuses, or simply writing notes, you'll be able to save time by associating these bulk updates with the whole group instead of individual animals.
To get started, navigate to Livestock on the left, and choose Groups. Then click on the group you'd like to work with.
You'll see buttons across the top for different actions you can apply to the group. Additional details for how to use each button are outlined below.
Add Note - You can first Add Notes to the group. This gives you the ability to jot down a quick text memo about this group. You can write the text of the note, add any keywords for easier searching, and add a date and category. Also note the yellow alert in our example below - the note will be applied to all 29 animals, so be sure what you are writing is applicable to all the animals in this group. After writing the note, click Update Group.
You'll see these notes on each individual animal record, even though they were applied to the group as a whole.
Move Grazing - You can also change which field your herd is grazing by using the Move Grazing button. A new window will pop up, allowing you to select the new field to move the group to. Choose your field, and click Update Group.
Continuing with our example from the screenshot above, the Active Grazing Fields page now shows all 29 Bison in our group grazing Eastside Field 1.
Bulk Update - The Bulk Update button helps you update the details for the animals in this group. There are many fields you can update using this button; here are just a few examples:
Basic Information like animal status and breeding status.
Physical Characteristics like sex, neutered status, whether the group is used as breeding stock, and retention scores.
Birth Information like birthdate and birth weight to use for your new animals.
Additional Information like the group's feed type, veterinarian, and estimated revenue and value.
Click Update Group to save the changes you made to your animal details.
Add Treatment - You can also record treatments administered to animals in bulk as well. These treatments include common procedures like deworming, hoof trimming, tagging, branding, and so on. You can also use the bulk treatment feature to record doses of medicine given to your livestock. You can learn more about Livestock Treatments in this article as well. Click Update Group to save the bulk treatment.
Of course, like our other examples above, you'll see the treatment associated with the individual animal record.
What else would you like to be able to accomplish in bulk for a whole animal group? Reach out to us and let us know any ideas you have for what would be helpful to you!