Record Keeping - How do YOU do it?

[ChickenToes]

Record-keeping is just a way to keep track of how much you're spending, how much cash is coming in if you sell eggs, and it helps keep track of each bird. They're also handy to keep track of how many eggs you get each day.

Some people keep records because they sell a lot of eggs or breed their chickens. I'm picky-retentive, that's why I keep records.

 

[bluey]

ChickenToes...I bet you didn't say picky!!!!

I worked 16 years as a medical researcher and biochemist. I keep records for just about everything but for chickens, I guess the reasoning is probably that I consider my chickens to be mainly livestock and if i run into problems with disease, production, cost, etc..., I have a fair amount of data to examine.

For example:
Historical feed and medicine prices, notes on effectivenesses of medicines, raising methods and procedures, quarantine times, coop plans and ideas and supply distributors. It may sound silly but I can't remember what happens with my chickens from week to week let alone what happened a month or a year ago. Sometimes I get great ideas from BYC and make notes to myself.

If I have a certain problem with a chicken, I want to know what hatchery it came from or which of my chickens produced it, if possible. Are there trends or correlations with any of the data that suggest that methods or materials be switched (like differences in brands of feed). Maybe I'd like to correlate egg laying to moon phases (which my game cam captures). Now, chances are I won't do this but I like to know that I can if I wanted to.

Because chickens will come and go, I'd like to be able to repeat success as much as possible and avoid the pitfalls. My wife thinks I'm nuts keeping a chicken ledger and she loves spreading the word to her family and friends but hey, I'm an analytical person. If I love doing something like raising chickens, I'm going to learn something from it.

If I'm a total nut...so be it....

(oh, yeah...I'm working it!)

 

[MamaDragon]

Bluey, and all the others -

Could you PLEASE tell me HOW you have your ledger / spreadsheets set up?

I understand the tracking of expense / income from basic accounting, so that's not too difficult.

However, how are you handling the rest?

Specific examples please??

I have NO concept of how to set up a "pedigree tree" for example, (if that's even what it's called). I follow the basics of the concept from raising German Shepherds long ago, but that's about it.

I guess I need to know WHAT I need to be tracking, HOW to track it, HOW to record it, and WHAT it all means! I know this all sounds rather ignorant, but I'm not stupid, just "UnEducated".

I'm TRYING to get educated, hence the purpose of this thread.

I WILL be undertaking a breeding project come this Spring, and Want / Need to know exactly WHAT DATA I Need to collect, and how to analyze what I get to achieve the results I'm looking for.......

Thanks for your Patience and Understanding, Really!

[some days it's soooo hard get the fingers/mouth to express what the brain needs to know.....

 

[tattooedchickenlady]

I have no desire to keep records of cost for my layers, though I guess I should.

I do write down every day how many eggs we get and colors, right now only brown and white, but we do have EE's and we're getting Welsummers, so I want to be in the habit.

When we get the 200 broilers I ordered, I'll keep track of food costs because when we process them we'll have everybody pay a per bird cost to cover everything.

I'm not stressing having pictures and stuff yet, I don't think anybody will mess with my girls in the backyard.

And I'm not breeding, so no pedigrees or bloodlines.

 

[bluey]

I'll be happy to post that information in the next day or so (I'm in the middle of a move).

My ledger is not a computer spreadsheet, so it reads more like a diary, I guess. I probably should put the info in an Excel spreadsheet but I've been too lazy to set that up, plus I have a wife and children that note egg counts and such, so i have to keep it pretty easy to access and simple to record. That's why I went with the ledger.

I don't use pictures but god knows I have a million of them archived on the computer. Maybe I should add at least a picture of each bird.

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

For egg sales, I keep a excel spreadsheet. It takes the total price paid, shipping costs, ebay or paypal fees, and totals it all up. It also keeps track of the breed, quantity, date, and customer name.

If anybody is interested in it. PM me with your email and Ill send it to you.

 

[ChickenToes]

Nope, I didn't say picky! I apologize though, I didn't realize I shouldn't have said what I said.

MamaDragon, I also use Excel spreadsheets. I can't for the life of me figure out how to start one from scratch, so I use templates.

 

[patandchickens]

For pedigree stuff, you do not have to put it all together now. The simplest and easiest thing is to just record whatever information you do actually know (where each chicken came from, if you know; which are the actual or possible parents of each batch of chicks; etc) and then if you should ever have REASON to want to do something more complicated with it later, you will be able to. Pieces of paper, or a MS Word file, are quite adequate for this purpose.

Frankly unless you trap-nest (lots of work!) or have your hens caged separately (individually) and rotate the roo, you are not likely to know the exact parentage of chicks anyhow. (Exception: if you can reliably recognize which hen lays which-lookin' egg). So you will be doing something like: This "x" batch of chicks came from Pen A which at the time consisted of Fred THe Rooster and hens Ann, Babe, Cindy, Diane and Edwina. This other "y" batch of chicks came from Pen B, which at the time consisted of... etc. And you would also write down "Fred Rooster came from such-and-such hatchery; Ann and Babe came from my sister's flock; Cindy, Diane and Edwina came from..."

Exactly what aspects of this turn out to be useful to you depends on what sort of breeding strategy you end up using.

I don't think that conventional animal-breeding pedigree-tracking software will be much use for most poultry breeders (except for trap-nesting or egg recognition or individually caged hens) because of not knowing exact parentage on both sides.

The above is probably still somewhat useful even if you do not mark your chicks, btw; but it becomes a lot more useful if you do (so that even when they are grown you can tell who came from what hatch)

Have fun,

Pat, former biologist, big fan of 'record all possibly relevant data and then put it somewhere safe'

 

[ruth]

We input all farm expenses (debits, cc charges, checks) into Quickbooks because we use it for everything since we have more than one business. Quickbooks will give me a report at end of year as to what I spent - or made once I actually start selling eggs, chicks, ducks, goats, etc.

I use a spiral-bound calendar for things like - how many eggs I put in bator and hatch date. I also use it to record which animals got wormed or shots. It can be used for just about everything.

Finally I use files to file away registration certificates; e-mails or paypal order forms with info on where things were purchased; and any other paperwork that accumulates.

We just incorporated as a farm so now I really need to get serious about record keeping when before I only did it because I can't keep everything in memory like when I plant something and when it should be ready for harvest. With a calendar I can mark when it went in ground, or in bator and another mark on day it is due to hatch or harvest.

Hope that helps.

 

[Chicabee19]

You could use Ancestry.com for your breed records! No one would know you weren't talking about people.