You'll likely be connecting sires when creating breeding records or linking genealogy for your animals. The animals that are available to select in the Bred With and Sire/Dam menus are automatically filtered for you to suggest animals that you might likely use. This makes it easier to connect the probable records, but you can also override this easily if you'd like. We'll go over the default sire criteria in this article, and then take a look at how you can mark them as breeding stock to bypass age limitations.
First, you can connect sires in both breeding records and animal genealogy. This means you can link the sire when recording that the dam was bred and tracking the pregnancy, or later when you have an animal record for the offspring. This is also true for grown animals that have been on your farm for a while; you can always access their existing record to trace their lineage and pedigree anytime.
When linking the sire in a breeding record, the following conditions must be met.
- The sire must be the same animal type as the record you are working with.
- The sire must be intact and not marked as neutered.
- The sire must be old enough to be considered mature and viable for reproduction. Generally this is six months old for any animal type, with 2 exceptions - Cattle must be 1 year, and chickens can be as young as 4 months.
You can't really bypass the animal type and neutering restrictions; these are required. However, we realize that animals may mature differently in unique environments and situations, so you can bypass the age requirement by simply marking this animal as breeding stock. This tells the system that the animal is ready to breed, and you can then use him in the sire menu. You will see an icon indicating they are breeding stock on their record after making this selection as well.
