Software to Organize Breeding

[Rosto]

Awesome! I just asked this in a recent post.

 

[Rosto]

The beads is genius! You could use different ones to organize them in a variety of ways.

 

[ColtHandorf]

That is genius using a bead!

Until the ziptie breaks and the birds pick up and eat the bead.

 

[everyday_farmlife]

Until the ziptie breaks and the birds pick up and eat the bead.

Well I'm yet to have this problem as I regularly check my birds zip ties and have never had one break in the 3 years I've been using them.
I guess it comes down to the owner/breeder, we have a schedule so every bird is health checked, attended to and accounted for on a daily basis

 

[everyday_farmlife]

Right, I found coloured beads with letters on them and they are amazing for sorting out who is who!

The beads is genius! You could use different ones to organize them in a variety of ways.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

This question keeps getting asked and I'm just trying to wrap my head around how many "projects" and breeds you all are mating every year?

I currently only keep one breed and have no need for any kind of software. My birds are banded for NPIP. In the future as breeder stock numbers grow I can log those band numbers into spreadsheet or word to keep notes. I've yet to have a need to do that and have been breeding these for three or four years now.

If you're lucky 1 in 10 chicks grows into breeder quality. I hatch 30 to 50 chicks per year and cull heavy. I have one sire, two cockerels, two hens and two pullets and 10 chicks going into winter. Eventually these numbers will grow when breeders prove through test matings that they carry the genes I need but for now it's pretty easy to know who is who and from whom they came.

Can someone explain why you need a program when starting out? Do you not selectively breed and cull the masses from your matings?

 

[SourRoses]

Can someone explain why you need a program when starting out? Do you not selectively breed and cull the masses from your matings?

A project usually connotes cross breeding to gain specific traits.
You describe breeding within a breed which is more straightforward.

My project involves crossing several breeds. Since that is a challenging prospect often warned about, I have planned for it to take a long time. When considering beginning the project, I simply decided that we've been keeping chickens for 11 years already and I don't see us not having them in the future, so I might as well spend the time and effort to make something I really want.
The more I research genetics (for everything, not just color), the more complicated it seems to get.
I don't know whether I will remember some of the fine details of what my birds carry and what I plan to do in each pen to reach the goal.
In order to gain momentum quickly, and avoid any genetic bottlenecks, I'm going to make many similar crosses in the first year, and then change the pens around and cross those with each other to double up on specific traits without sibling matings.
I was writing it down on paper and I realized I need to make at least 12 different crosses in the first year.
My journal is a mess... I also can't figure out how to index it and allow for future knowledge to fill certain gaps.
So, I was hoping for a computer to help me keep things organized

 

[3KillerBs]

Can someone explain why you need a program when starting out? Do you not selectively breed and cull the masses from your matings?

I guess that depends on how good your memory is, how many traits you're selecting for, whether you're crossing in other breeds, and how much linebreeding you're planning on.

 

[everyday_farmlife]

I guess that depends on how good your memory is, how many traits you're selecting for, whether you're crossing in other breeds, and how much linebreeding you're planning on.

Yes I agree, I only have 3 different breeds which are all purebreds being bred with end goal being to attain SOP.
I use leg bands and spreadsheets because even though they are pbs everytime you add a new line of hens/roosters you add a vast genetic pool some of which have desirable traits while others can send your flock backwards and I want to know who is carrying what genetics it makes it a lot easier than flying blind as you hatch out a higher ratio of breeding quality in my humble opinion anyways

 

[AGeese]

I'd basically like Ancestry trees and DNA for birds.