tattoo sequence ideas!?!?

[RABBITGIRLFORTHEWIN]

I'm completely stuck on my tattoo sequence. I know I want every tattoo to start with "SB" for "Silver Bliss rabbitry," but that's about all I've got. I was doing SB for Silver Bliss, M for the dam's first letter of her name, T for the sire's first letter of his name, 1 for the first kit I grabbed, and so on. You can see how this could get copied quickly. I need a sequence that will last a while and won't be too long(there's only so much ear lol).
I appreciate your help,
-Julia

 

[kusanar314]

Why not just number them? SB24001 Will that fit? Then you have up to 999 rabbits a year. Silver Bliss, born in '24, number 001

 

[RABBITGIRLFORTHEWIN]

Why not just number them? SB24001 Will that fit? Then you have up to 999 rabbits a year. Silver Bliss, born in '24, number 001

Thanks, for your help! Any more good ideas?

 

[Alaska Satin]

I'm completely stuck on my tattoo sequence. I know I want every tattoo to start with "SB" for "Silver Bliss rabbitry," but that's about all I've got. I was doing SB for Silver Bliss, M for the dam's first letter of her name, T for the sire's first letter of his name, 1 for the first kit I grabbed, and so on. You can see how this could get copied quickly. I need a sequence that will last a while and won't be too long(there's only so much ear lol).
I appreciate your help,
-Julia

The pattern I use is similar to the one you were using, modified for the reasons you are doing so (duplication), as well as being an indication of which litter of a given set of parents, an indication of sex, and ranking of the bunnies in a litter.

The tattoos are: (litter number if it's the second or more litter from the same parents)(sire's initial)(dam's initial)(kit number, males being odd numbers, females even numbers, and going from best to least good).

So, the first litter from Girdwood and Kitty would be GK1 (buck), GK2 (doe), GK3 (buck), GK4 (doe), etc. Their second litter would be 2GK1 (buck), 2GK2 (doe), etc.

If I have rabbits of the same sex with the same initial, for instance Surprise, Starlight, and Stardust, I add a second letter to their initial when the second one comes up, e.g. Surprise = SU, Starlight = ST, Stardust = SD. So Girdwood and Surprise's second litter would be 2GSU1 (doe), 2GCU2 (doe) etc.

If you add your rabbitry initials SB, you'll get a maximum of eight characters with this system, or rarely nine if the doe has more than 5 of one sex in a litter. If Surprise (SU) had six female kits in her second litter with Kibble (KB), you might end up with SB2KBSU2, SB2KBSU4, SB2KBSU6, SB2KBSU8, SB2KBSU0 and SB2KBSU12. I don't usually tattoo butcher growouts, though, so I've never had to use the maximum number of digits in my system (which is seven since I don't use a rabbitry indicator).

I've found that it's really helpful to know the rabbit's parentage by the ear number; I don't have hundreds of rabbits to keep track of, but it's funny how even with just a dozen or two rabbits, that stuff can blur in your memory when you're thinking about culling or breeding pairs. Adding the birth year is pretty handy too, but I find the parentage more useful and like to keep the tattoos as short as possible. It's also been very interesting to see how my judgment (of which rabbit is best at tattoo age, which is usually between 6-12 weeks) changes over time - I used to end up with a lot more GSU6s with Grand Championships than I do now (when they're usually the 1s and 2s), so I think the exercise has helped refine my assessment abilities over the years. (I also have the occasional buck ending in an even number, but that's more amusing than important. )

 

[RABBITGIRLFORTHEWIN]

I think I'm going to do this sequence. SB for Silver Bliss, A for 2024(next would-be B for 2025), 1 for each rabbit born that year.
Thanks for your help.

 

[kusanar314]

The pattern I use is similar to the one you were using, modified for the reasons you are doing so (duplication), as well as being an indication of which litter of a given set of parents, an indication of sex, and ranking of the bunnies in a litter.

The tattoos are: (litter number if it's the second or more litter from the same parents)(sire's initial)(dam's initial)(kit number, males being odd numbers, females even numbers, and going from best to least good).

So, the first litter from Girdwood and Kitty would be GK1 (buck), GK2 (doe), GK3 (buck), GK4 (doe), etc. Their second litter would be 2GK1 (buck), 2GK2 (doe), etc.

If I have rabbits of the same sex with the same initial, for instance Surprise, Starlight, and Stardust, I add a second letter to their initial when the second one comes up, e.g. Surprise = SU, Starlight = ST, Stardust = SD. So Girdwood and Surprise's second litter would be 2GSU1 (doe), 2GCU2 (doe) etc.

If you add your rabbitry initials SB, you'll get a maximum of eight characters with this system, or rarely nine if the doe has more than 5 of one sex in a litter. If Surprise (SU) had six female kits in her second litter with Kibble (KB), you might end up with SB2KBSU2, SB2KBSU4, SB2KBSU6, SB2KBSU8, SB2KBSU0 and SB2KBSU12. I don't usually tattoo butcher growouts, though, so I've never had to use the maximum number of digits in my system (which is seven since I don't use a rabbitry indicator).

I've found that it's really helpful to know the rabbit's parentage by the ear number; I don't have hundreds of rabbits to keep track of, but it's funny how even with just a dozen or two rabbits, that stuff can blur in your memory when you're thinking about culling or breeding pairs. Adding the birth year is pretty handy too, but I find the parentage more useful and like to keep the tattoos as short as possible. It's also been very interesting to see how my judgment (of which rabbit is best at tattoo age, which is usually between 6-12 weeks) changes over time - I used to end up with a lot more GSU6s with Grand Championships than I do now (when they're usually the 1s and 2s), so I think the exercise has helped refine my assessment abilities over the years. (I also have the occasional buck ending in an even number, but that's more amusing than important. )

My reasoning for doing it the way I suggested is that I'm a very numbers and data driven person. I play a rabbit breeding game online and currently have over 200 breeding rabbits and have had over 1,200 kits born in a single day. I keep it all in excel and do my number crunching there. I do understand if you have a more reasonable number of breeders that it would be possible to do most of it in your head, but I don't trust myself even with the more reasonable numbers.

I've also participated in horse judging and was taught how to easily and quickly look at an animal and transform the physical animal into a numerical score. So, for example, a buck rabbit scoring 400 would obviously replace his father that's only a 350, but if you got a 325 you wouldn't replace the sire with that one because you would be going backwards.

You do hands on with the animals to get their individual confirmation scores, do weights, record anything else of interest (are you breeding for a specific color? If so, mark if it does or does not help with that goal), then take all of the data into the house and make your decisions there when you don't have cute little beady eyes looking at you and making you feel guilty for making the cuts you are making.

Then you can take your cull list out to the barn and mark cages from there.