Livestock Record Keeping

-by Rebecca Krebs Livestock record keeping is a fundamental component of every goat breeding program. Records streamline herd management and provide the information necessary to improve herd health, production, or conformational traits through selective breeding. In registered herds, correct records preserve the accuracy of generations of pedigree and performance data. Let’s look at what facts are important to record and how to keep track of them.

What facts should be recorded?

• Heat Cycles: Most does are consistent in how often they come into heat. If you plan to take your doe to an outside buck for stud service or artificially inseminate her, mark the date every time she comes into heat. You can make advance arrangements with the buck’s owner or the A.I. technician if there is a pattern. After the doe is bred, if she shows no signs of heat when you would normally expect her to — yay! — there is a good chance that she is pregnant.
• Breeding Dates: Recording the date(s) a doe is exposed to a buck is helpful since you know her due date and, therefore, can feed and manage her correctly for her stage of gestation, as well as prepare for kidding beforehand. Furthermore, if a doe is exposed to multiple bucks over the course of the breeding season, recording which buck she was exposed to on which date(s) will help eliminate pedigree errors or the extra fees associated with DNA testing her offspring to verify their sire.
• Escapees: Anytime you find an escaped goat in or near the opposite sex’s pen, it’s worth noting it in your records, even if you don’t think any breeding occurred. Does, for example, have been known to jump into the buck pen, get successfully bred, and jump out again? That note will explain a few things down the road when Daisy looks suspiciously fat, and it may help identify the sire of the oopsies.
• Parentage: Even if your goats aren’t registered, keep track of their parents so that you can make informed herd selection and breeding choices based on the desirable or undesirable traits each goat passes to its offspring. Accurate parentage records establish your reputation as an honest breeder for registered herds. A registration mistake, though unintentional, is difficult to recover from since no one wants to risk buying goats with dubious pedigrees.
• Birth Dates: Kids’ birth dates are required for registration. You’ll also need their birth dates to provide age-specific care, such as vaccinations or parasite control.
• Kidding Ease: Jot down a few remarks about the outcome of each birth. Does that give birth without complications or intervention are the goal of every good breeding program, whereas does with a history of kidding complications should be removed from the breeding herd since they are more likely to pass on those tendencies to their daughters and granddaughters.
• Number/Sex of Kids in Birth: Birth records aid in identifying hereditary litter-size trends in a line of goats. Both the number of kids in the birth and their sex is also required information on registration applications.
• Mothering Ability: Mothering instincts are hereditary and influence the survivability, health, adaptability, and growth of dam-raised kids. Good mothers attentively clean, feed, guide, and protect their kids. Replace does that routinely reject or neglect their kids.
• Milk Production: In dairy herds, milk, butterfat, and protein production records are essential to determine which goats are assets as milkers and breeding animals. Record production officially through the Dairy Herd Improvement program or unofficially in a notebook. Additionally, does of all breeds need to produce enough milk to raise healthy kids.
• Kids’ Growth Rates: Genetics, nutrition, and management influence kids’ growth rates. Take note of kids that grow slowly compared to their peers. Management aside, these issues can point to congenital health problems, poor resistance to parasites, or an unproductive mother. Records of live and/or hanging weights are important if you raise meat goats that must reach a specific size by market time. Cull lines of goats that fail to thrive or don’t meet weight gain goals in favor of retaining thrifty goats.
• Body Condition Scores: Regularly evaluating and recording each goat’s body condition score reveals whether current management practices produce satisfactory results or should be modified (e.g., increasing feeding for heavily lactating does that have difficulty maintaining weight).
• Health Log: Document parasite treatments or preventatives, hoof trimming, vaccinations, antibiotic treatments, or any other health maintenance or veterinary procedures. This health log will help you remember when the goats are due for another deworming, vaccination, etc. It is critical to ensure and document that you are adhering to correct milk and meat withdrawal periods after the administration of drugs. Plus, a meticulous health log highlights goats that deal with health problems more frequently than the others.
• Identification: All your records are pointless unless you have a reliable method of tying those records to specific goats. Tattoo, tag, and/or microchip each goat with a unique identification number you can file its records under. Goat registration organizations require at least one of these forms of identification for registration.

Electronic livestock record keeping

Electronic livestock record keeping has the advantage of streamlined storage, easy transport, and quick access anywhere on the farm. You can find a goat record-keeping app or farm record-keeping software with a wide selection of features that help you keep track of every important detail. Or creating a basic goat record-keeping spreadsheet may suit your needs just fine.

Electronic records, however, are at the mercy of finicky devices, power outages, software glitches, and a myriad of other issues. Regularly back up electronic records so they aren’t completely lost in such an event.

Paper livestock record keeping

Compared to electronic records, paper records take more space to store and must be carefully organized for easy accessibility. But, considering that one little glitch won’t obliterate everything, some people feel that the tangibility of pen and paper in hand outweighs modern convenience. Store irreplaceable paper records in a fire- and water-resistant file cabinet.

Make livestock record keeping simple and organized. If it’s a burden, you won’t add entries while the details are fresh in your mind. Leaving nothing to memory is the key to accurate livestock record keeping that helps you achieve your herd goals and build customers’ respect and confidence.

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Originally published in the September/October 2023 issue of Goat Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.