Record keeping ?s...

[FourRingCircus]

I feel like I have totally bombarded the boards with newbie questions - I apologize . I do appreciate all the information though!

What do you use for record keeping - both past, present, and future information? How do you have it laid out?

Also, do you do pedigrees? How necessary do you feel they are for a small, backyard rabbitry? I do have one papered rabbit, my son hopes to show eventually, but not sure how far into the future that is going to be.

 

[Dood]

From the start I knew I would have a high turn over to improve my rabbits production qualities which cannot accurately be done without detailed records and a pedigree

In the bunny barn I have a calendar that I use to jot down breedings, births and behaviour and medical info

In the house I have a binder and each adult rabbit has their own page, or section if they've been with me for a while :mrgreen: all the information from the calendar gets transferred to each rabbits page as well as detailed information like their weight, their ancestry/pedigree, weights of offspring etc...

This way I can keep track of who is and is not getting pregnant on schedule, what size litters they tend to have, how well their nursing kits grow which is an indication of milk production, how well their weaned kits grow which is an indication of feed efficiency genetics, time needed to regain body condition for next litter and so on :cheesysmile:

 

[FourRingCircus]

From the start I knew I would have a high turn over to improve my rabbits production qualities which cannot accurately be done without detailed records and a pedigree

In the bunny barn I have a calendar that I use to jot down breedings, births and behaviour and medical info

In the house I have a binder and each adult rabbit has their own page, or section if they've been with me for a while :mrgreen: all the information from the calendar gets transferred to each rabbits page as well as detailed information like their weight, their ancestry/pedigree, weights of offspring etc...

This way I can keep track of who is and is not getting pregnant on schedule, what size litters they tend to have, how well their nursing kits grow which is an indication of milk production, how well their weaned kits grow which is an indication of feed efficiency genetics, time needed to regain body condition for next litter and so on :cheesysmile:

Do you have printouts of what to compare it to (mainly for growth), or just going from experience at this point?

I have a couple rabbit books I purchased, but I am hoping to find a condensed "this is the information to keep" and "this is what you need to know" type printouts to keep on hand. I did find a handy breeding calendar sheet that tells me when the next litter is due without having to think it through. That's been pretty handy.

 

[Dood]

Sorry, I dont have a print out as it is more of a chronological journal entry type system

 

[Marinea]

Mine is all kept in a notebook. I write down unusual stuff that happens, changes to the rabbitry, etc. I also write down dates: breeding dates (and who was bred to who), nest box in dates, kindling dates (and how many). I weigh kits weekly, and those get written down. It's basically everything that happens so that I don't have to remember anything. It has helped a ton in making decisions on which animals to keep and how changes affect the animals.

 

[Rainey]

I think that what you keep for records depends on your goals and probably the size of your rabbitry. Since I'm raising for meat, weights matter. I don't weigh individual kits until they're getting near butcher size and I'm wanting to decide who to keep for future breeding. Some one on RT advised keeping track of the weight of the whole litter until weaning to judge the does' milk production.
So I have a notebook where I keep various information in chronological order. Then each rabbit that is being bred has its own record starting from when it was purchased or born, giving its parentage and dates of breeding and results.
This year I set up a chart that records litters in order of arrival down one side (the litter number indicates the doe and whether this is her first, second etc litter) Then the columns start with the number of kits in the litter and the weight of the entire litter at birth. Then the weights at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 weeks, and at processing time. The chart makes it very easy to compare litters/does. Hope it will make decisions about who to keep easier.

 

[6riversfarms]

I bought some Pedigree and Record of Performance sheets from Bass Equipment when I first started out. They go in a 3 ring binder. I still use them. I was going to order some more from them a few months back but the shipping was rediculous so I just made copies of one of the unused ones.