Sheep Records: What to Record for Every Head and Every Event

Good sheep records have two parts: a fixed identity card for every animal (number and tag colour, breed, sex, birth date, dam and sire) and an event log that grows over its life: weights, matings, pregnancy, lambing and litter size, weaning, vaccinations and treatments, death with the cause, and sale. Record each event on the day it happens, not at the end of the week.

Many breeders record some things and skip others, so the "records" end up being a lambing notebook or a vaccination list and nothing more. Then the questions that matter have no answer: which ewes have twins? Why did three lambs die this month? Is this ram worth keeping? This guide sets out exactly what to record, when and why.

The identity card: recorded once per animal

These details are written at birth or purchase and rarely change:

• Number and tag colour: together they are the animal's identity, because the same number can exist in another colour. If you have no clear system yet, start with livestock numbering and tag colours.
• Breed: Naimi, Najdi, Harri, Sawakni or a cross, with the parents' breeds if known.
• Sex.
• Birth date: exact for animals born on the farm, estimated for bought animals, marked as an estimate.
• Dam and sire: the basis for choosing replacement ewes and rams and for avoiding close matings, as explained in inbreeding and pedigree records.
• Origin: born on the farm or bought, from whom and at what price.
• Group or pen it lives in now.
• A photo, which helps workers recognise it if the tag falls out.

The event log: what, when and why

Three habits make this table useful rather than a chore:

1. Record the cause, not only the event. "Died" teaches you nothing; "lamb, 2 days old, weak twin" teaches you a lot.
2. Link every event to number and colour. "Vaccinated pen 3" without the list of animals is lost the day the pen changes.
3. Keep money next to the animals. Feed, treatment and labour costs are what let your records answer the profit question. See farm income and expense records.

Notebook, spreadsheet or app?

A notebook is cheap and easy, but it does not remind you, add up or search. A spreadsheet adds and calculates, but it gets heavy as it grows and is awkward for a worker in the pen. A phone app records on the spot, reminds you and works out cost. What matters most is not the tool but the habit: an incomplete app is no better than a complete notebook. For a full comparison read Excel vs a livestock app.

How to record all this in Throf

In Throf each animal has a file holding the full identity card: number and tag colour, breed, sex, birth date, weight, photo, dam, sire and group. Every event is added to the same file:

• Production stages: mating or insemination, early and late pregnancy, close to birth, birth (single, twins or triplets), miscarriage, weaning, drying-off and fattening. You can change the stage for a whole group at once.
• Health: vaccinations, treatments, illnesses, inspections and a separate isolation status, with reminders for upcoming dates.
• Weights: entered by hand, or sent by a smart scale that reads the animal's RFID tag and saves the weight in its history.
• Deaths, sales and expenses: a dead-animals report, a sales log, and cost per head and net profit.

Age and sex classes are set automatically from the birth date, so you know how many lambs, young ewes and mothers you have without counting. To work out the expected lambing date from a mating date, use the gestation calculator.

A 20-minute weekly review

Records nobody reads are useless. Set a fixed time each week:

1. Lambings due in the next two weeks: are those ewes in the lambing pen?
2. Vaccinations and treatments due: who has not been done yet?
3. Deaths this week: how many, at what age, and what cause was recorded?
4. Weights: is the fattening group growing as planned, or has it stalled?
5. Open ewes: ewes mated but not confirmed pregnant, and ewes that keep coming back open.
6. Stock and expenses: will the feed last until the next purchase?

At the end of each month compare three figures: lambs born per ewe lambed, the death rate, and average weaning weight. Those three alone tell you where your farm is improving and where it is losing money.