Adding your animal records is the first step towards keeping information about your livestock. You'll supply some basic information first, like name, animal type, breed, tag numbers, birthdate, and a lot more. Once you have these records, you can then take all kinds of actions with them, like recording treatments, feedings, and breedings. You'll also be able to add them to groups and perform many of those same actions in bulk. The basic information you add to their record can also be added to reports, and can help you filter your animals list by similar characteristics.
To get started, just navigate to Livestock from the main menu. You'll have a few different ways to add animal records from here.
- Adding animals individually - Click the button to Add Animal and you'll be able to add details about a single new animal.
- Adding animals in bulk - Click the ellipsis actions button and then select Bulk Add animals to add basic data about up to 15 animals at a time.
- Adding animals via import - Click the same ellipsis actions button and choose Import records to supply a spreadsheet of animal data and create up to 1000 animals at once.
- Adding animals in a Set group - You can use the New Group button to create Set groups, which could be useful for animals you track as a unit like chickens, fish, and bees.
The choice between these is entirely up to you, and you can use a combination of all of these however you see fit for you needs. Options 2, 3, and 4 above each have their own article linked above ( and in the related articles below0 that will explain the process; we'll go over Option 1 to add animals individually below.
Adding New Animals Individually
To add a new animal, just click the New Animal button. The screen will refresh and you'll be presented with many fields to complete. Don't worry, nothing is absolutely required. At a minimum you will either need to supply a name, or type. All other fields are optional, and you can always come bac later to edit and update any of them. You see the animal details categorized into different sections, we go over some of the highlights below.
Basic Information- You'll add the most general information about an animal here. This might be things like their name, animal type, breed, and sex. This is also where you can add keywords to the animal, which are used to filter report results and your Livestock Dashboard records. Think of these like tags, where you can create a custom "label" for the animal and the filter and search for it later. You'll also find the Animal Status here, which is used in a similar way. You might set statuses like active, for sale, off farm, reference, or deceased.
Physical Characteristics - Use this section to add unique descriptions and characteristics like whether the animal is neutered or used for breeding stock. You can also describe it's coloring, and provide a retention score so you know whether you should keep them in your herd or possibly cull them.
Identification - This section contains all of the specific identifying characteristics, like tags, registry numbers, and tattoos. You can also add an electronic ID number here, which is used for a Bluetooth scanning integration to easily access the animal's record in Farmbrite with an embedded RFID chip.
Birth Information - Record any information about the animal's birth here. You start might be the birth date, which is used to calculate their age and can determine whether an animal is mature enough to breed. Speaking of breeding, if you supplied an animal type, you'll also see menus to select a Dam or Sire from your other animals. Don't worry, if this is your first animal record you'll be able to come back and update those fields later. You can also include weaning information for the animal here as well.
Additional Information - There's a lot in this section! It's the rest of the details that might not fit into the other subsections. You can choose how you acquired the animal, including whether it was raised on your farm, purchased, or even gifted or donated to you. You'll also find details about the animal's feed, growth and maturity expectations, and veterinary care. You can also supply the animal's estimated value, which can also be tracked over time to see your asset appreciate. And if you need a reminder about something very important to remember about this animal, you can also use the a record alert to place a yellow banner of highlighted text at the top of the record. Finally, the fields for "Measure Harvest In", and " Estimated Revenue Per Harvest Unit" can be used to measure and value your animal yields.
Custom Fields - Not every plan has this available, but if you are using Performance or Premium you'll be able to create your own unique fields to track whatever is important for you. Check out this article for a full walk though on how to set these up. Bonus: They are also available on yields, treatments, and other record types as well!
A note about animal counts: Different Farmbrite plans have different animal count limitations. You might wonder how the records you create are being counted towards your Farmbrite subscription active animal count. Overall, each individual animal record counts as 1, and a Set group also counts as a single animal towards that limit. Note that animals in the following statuses do not count towards the limit: Archived, Butchered, Culled, Deceased, Lost, Off Farm, Reference, and Sold. Check out this article for more details on how the count is calculated.
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