What is doable in your perfect rabbit software? I've been looking at software, but I've decided to make my own.

[Kaizarhiede]

I'm looking into getting rabbit breeding software and have looked into the big ones (Everbreed, Kintraks, etc.), but I don't want to pay for software that I find less than perfect and 30 days isn't that long to try it out when a doe is pregnant for ~31 days. I have read some threads on this site about the softwares and people explaining the pros and cons.

So, what I've decided, since I am in college learning about programming, I'll make my own software to include everything I want and need into one program. Not only will it be beneficial for me with my rabbits, but I will learn a lot in the process and have a project to show to potential employers, and maybe some day I could share it with others.

What are musts in rabbit (breeding) software? What can you not live without now that you have it? What do you wish the software you have now would do? What seems like it's good to have, but actually isn't? Do you find graphs, like weight graphs, extra useful or would you rather see just the numbers? Is there anything below that doesn't seem like it should be included? Or something not below that should be included?

I have a long list of things I've seen in other softwares' information pages (or mentioned in a few posts by others on this site) that I feel should be included in the software (it's not 100% organized since I just threw it together real quick before writing this):

1. Calendar
   1. Track
      1. Breeding Chores
         1. The breeding chore list is keyed to your doe's litter data. Once you have entered a breeding date for a doe, reminds you of subsequent chores, including when to rebreed. As events are marked off, they are permanently stored in your litter data for future reference.
      2. Birthing Dates
      3. Nestbox Dates
      4. Chore Dates
         1. What chores need to be done
         2. See them in a list based on date, ear tag, or type of chore
         3. Put multiple lists together for one big or separate lists
         4. Automatically reschedules chores/events
      5. Cleaning Dates
      6. Weather for the week, holidays, phases of the moon
      7. Reminders for family events and show dates
      8. Master Task List
         1. Shows comprehensive list of the status of everything in your rabbitry
2. Genetics
   1. Automatically fills in known genes (alleles) based on the animal's color (phenotype).
   2. Performs color prediction based on the A, B, C, D, E, W, V and En genes. Also allows you to manually enter the Du gene and one user-defined gene.
   3. Analyzes the parents and offspring to fill in unknown genes. Each gene displayed on the screen is color- coded to show you whether it came from the sire or dam. The program also color-codes to indicate which genes were determined by examining the offspring and which genes where manually set by the user.
   4. Identifies any genes that appear to be in conflict with the parent's or the offspring's genetic makeup.
   5. Allows you to do experimental cross-breedings to see what colors of offspring can be produced by crossing two animals. You can pick from animals in your rabbitry, to see what they can produce, or you can select from a list of over 100 colors, without having to have animals with that phenotype.
   6. You can select a color and the program will rank the animals in your rabbitry as to their likelihood of being able to produce that color.
   7. Genetic makeup can be printed on your pedigrees.
   8. Included with the program is Color Genetics in U.S. Domestic Rabbits, written by Candy Haenszel, a clear and highly readable introduction to rabbit genetics.
3. Journaling
   1. Provides a place to keep all your personal notes, organized by date.
   2. No limit on the amount of text that you can enter for a given day.
   3. Assign a color category and/or a star rating to each entry.
   4. All entries can be searched for any combination of category, star rating or text.
4. Financial Ledger
   1. Keeps mileage records and provides mileage printouts for tax purposes.
   2. Write down expenses
   3. Sold rabbits
   4. Income
   5. Pictures of receipts
5. Pedigrees
   1. Prints Birth Certificates for pet sales. These show DOB, name, parents and rabbitry name, but do not provide contact information.
   2. Simple data entry. For instance, when entering the pedigree of a newly-purchased animal, the program displays a blank pedigree on the screen, and you just fill it in. The computer prompts you to fill in the required information for each entry. For instance, while you are entering the color of the rabbit, the computer provides a list of all ARBA-accepted varieties for that breed.
   3. Data for each animal is only entered once, regardless of how many times that rabbit appears in a pedigree. Our pedigrees show ALL vital data, unlike some other programs. For example, we include ear size on English Lops, and markings on Checkered Giants.
6. Other notes
   1. photos, pedigrees, weights, printable certificates, show winnings, notes and even the percentage of a particular ancestor contributed to a bloodline.
   2. You can record for any species.
   3. ledger tracking and entering your contacts
   4. breedings, litters, gives notifications when to do tasks (put in nest boxes, etc.), print cage cards and pedigrees, and so on
   5. I find the most useful function to be the level of inbreeding button - coefficient of inbreeding
      1. level of inbreeding below 25% when possible
      2. Inbreeding can work to identify recessive traits, although it can also double up on debilitating and lethal recessives as well.
   6. They did change the name colors for bucks and does now, though, which is nice.
      1. it'd be nice if they'd let us sort the names by gender, age, color or another variable of our choice
   7. excel day-to-day record keeping
      1. One for my daily and weekly chores, tracking weather and hutch ventilation needs, etc., as well as for upcoming needs for each rabbit
      2. Then I have another I designed and se for tracking each litter and each individual within the litter, from birth to final outcome, whatever that may be.
   8. What I like most about Kintraks and using excel is that all of my data is available locally if/when the internet goes down, I still have access to all of my data.
   9. Now I'm naming them each year in alphabetical order. Last year was 'A's with the first ones having names higher up in the stack. 'Abby' before 'Annie', etc. This year they will all be named with a 'B', so eventually, they will all be sorted by age as well as by name.
   10. I also print out hardcopies of the pedigrees just in case something happens to the program
   11. "Help" instructions
   12. Weight under the Health tab
       1. I was able to enter all 12 rabbits & loving the graph chart it automatically displays.
   13. you can add whatever categories you want as well
   14. Pedigrees - Unlimited
       Generations
   15. Unlimited Litters
   16. Graphically Track Weights
   17. Sales and Purchases
   18. No Limit Picture Storage
   19. Evaluate Rabbit
       Development
   20. Automate Litter Events
   21. Consolidated Progeny View
   22. Print Text & Photo Pedigrees
   23. Keep Unlimited Notes
   24. Rabbits Sold
   25. Income and Expenses
   26. Litter/Breeding Cards
   27. Show Records
   28. app and pc component
   29. Health and wellness checks for your rabbits - issues, fly strike?, lethargy, wounds and where, medication you give them
   30. Mark the rabbit as a keeper or cull
   31. Cage Cards with QR Codes that take you to the bunny's information on app
   32. Record compiler
       1. Ratio of does to bucks.
       2. Number of active litters and total kits.
       3. How many sold, butchered, and died/ culled.
       4. Finances, sorted by expenses and income.
       5. Total number of litters born.
       6. Average litter size.
       7. Average age to butcher and average butcher weight.
       8. Survival rate.
   33. Breeder performance
       1. Live vs. dead-born kits.
       2. Survival rates.
       3. Average litter size.
       4. Doe and buck misses.
   34. Meat performance
       1. Average kit weight per litter.
       2. Average litter growth rate.
       3. Meat produced from butchered kits.
       4. Average butcher age.

Thank you for your time and thoughts!

 

[ladysown]

For instance, while you are entering the color of the rabbit, the computer provides a list of all ARBA-accepted varieties for that breed --- please no. let people list the colour the rabbit actually is. There are a fair number of "unshowable" colours that turn up. Doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

[HTAcres]

Calendar part is most important for me. The Genetics sounds amazing! Like #8 - I downloaded the free Rabbit Tracker from Edelweiss and is what I use now. It would be great to be able to "hide" whatever I am not using - or at least it not being constantly in my face. I do not show rabbits though I'd use a pedigree for giving a lineage to my breeder buyers. Building on what ladysown said, one of my breeds is not ARBA recognized so I would need to be able to manually enter information for that breed somehow.

 

[Kaizarhiede]

The coloring is definitely something I know I have to do something different with since I have silver foxes and not all their colors are ARBA recognized. So, I think I'd have the ARBA recognized ones listed, but allow additions so people can work on their own colorings.
And for breeds, that would need some extra customization for mixed breeds, colors, weights, etc so it makes meat breeding actually mapable.
Maybe I could make a "focus mode" for certain information to show. Want to focus on just genetic pairings? Look at breeders, genetics, probabilities, etc that would go with that.

 

[HTAcres]

The coloring is definitely something I know I have to do something different with since I have silver foxes and not all their colors are ARBA recognized. So, I think I'd have the ARBA recognized ones listed, but allow additions so people can work on their own colorings.
And for breeds, that would need some extra customization for mixed breeds, colors, weights, etc so it makes meat breeding actually mapable.
Maybe I could make a "focus mode" for certain information to show. Want to focus on just genetic pairings? Look at breeders, genetics, probabilities, etc that would go with that.

Just FYI, I'd be happy to be a beta tester though I might not be using every part so I wouldn't be ideal.

 

[Kaizarhiede]

Just FYI, I'd be happy to be a beta tester though I might not be using every part so I wouldn't be ideal.

That would be awesome! Reading through your comment from before, it seems you'll use quite a few things and even if you're not using everything, you'd still be helpful for fixing and making better what you do use.

 

[eco2pia]

You have a great wishlist! I would love a calendar, with notifications sent somewhere--maybe importable to my google calendar, which then notifies by email, phone. One page printable Pedigree generator that is snappy looking and clean. Ability to "sort" thru offspring by various filters is great too.

See if you can poke around SoftmouseDB. I have used this software for work and it does some of this, but it is not perfect. This software is based on a database rather than excel/spreadsheet, so if you are not familiar with those it might be a learning curve to build on a database backbone, but it is much more powerful. As you probably know a database is ideal for collating a bunch of weird bits of info, but it is rarely user friendly. Built on a database you will end up with a saleable product if you get the user interface right.

Also happy to beta test when you get that far. I am familiar with bug documentation for IT professionals.

 

[KelleyBee]

Financial Ledger

What about expenses, feed, hay, equipment, medication, housing, etc etc etc.

“Weight under the Health tab

1. I was able to enter all 12 rabbits & loving the graph chart it automatically displays”

what I don’t like about Kintraks/animal breeder‘s graph below the weight is that I don’t know exactly who the other animals are when I click on the different options to see how the current rabbit compares. So I am now making a paper graph for this because I have shot myself in the foot, yet agai, by selling a rabbit that I actually should have kept for herd improvement. He left Friday and while going over my paper records last evening is when I realized my mistake. I find if I want to compare the growth rates of rabbits, I need to take screenshots of the weight charts (not the grarph, since it’s mostly useless if you want to compare just 2 or 3 individuals) and then print them out, and read the charts side by side and compare by the age and weight displa for each rabbit. It would be awesome to be able to select a few specific rabbits and be able to compare them….sort of like some online stores give us the opportunity to select a few similar products for a side by side comparison before purchasing.

 

[hotzcatz]

As for the ARBA colors and the non-ARBA colors, you could have them all available but in different colors for the allowable ones and the disqualifying ones. Kintracks has different colors for bucks and does, so different color text can be very useful.

Having it available on aphone/tablet as well as a PC would be useful since usually only the phone is available in the rabbit yard.

 

[Cosima]

maybe make the color thing like everbreed so you can type in the color that way if someone has a unusual color like tort otter they can type it in same for the breed if you can’t type want you want it might get frustrated if the breed your rabbit are is not a option.

 

[gailbelanger]

I'm looking into getting rabbit breeding software and have looked into the big ones (Everbreed, Kintraks, etc.), but I don't want to pay for software that I find less than perfect and 30 days isn't that long to try it out when a doe is pregnant for ~31 days. I have read some threads on this site about the softwares and people explaining the pros and cons.

So, what I've decided, since I am in college learning about programming, I'll make my own software to include everything I want and need into one program. Not only will it be beneficial for me with my rabbits, but I will learn a lot in the process and have a project to show to potential employers, and maybe some day I could share it with others.

What are musts in rabbit (breeding) software? What can you not live without now that you have it? What do you wish the software you have now would do? What seems like it's good to have, but actually isn't? Do you find graphs, like weight graphs, extra useful or would you rather see just the numbers? Is there anything below that doesn't seem like it should be included? Or something not below that should be included?

I have a long list of things I've seen in other softwares' information pages (or mentioned in a few posts by others on this site) that I feel should be included in the software (it's not 100% organized since I just threw it together real quick before writing this):

1. Calendar
   1. Track
      1. Breeding Chores
         1. The breeding chore list is keyed to your doe's litter data. Once you have entered a breeding date for a doe, reminds you of subsequent chores, including when to rebreed. As events are marked off, they are permanently stored in your litter data for future reference.
      2. Birthing Dates
      3. Nestbox Dates
      4. Chore Dates
         1. What chores need to be done
         2. See them in a list based on date, ear tag, or type of chore
         3. Put multiple lists together for one big or separate lists
         4. Automatically reschedules chores/events
      5. Cleaning Dates
      6. Weather for the week, holidays, phases of the moon
      7. Reminders for family events and show dates
      8. Master Task List
         1. Shows comprehensive list of the status of everything in your rabbitry
2. Genetics
   1. Automatically fills in known genes (alleles) based on the animal's color (phenotype).
   2. Performs color prediction based on the A, B, C, D, E, W, V and En genes. Also allows you to manually enter the Du gene and one user-defined gene.
   3. Analyzes the parents and offspring to fill in unknown genes. Each gene displayed on the screen is color- coded to show you whether it came from the sire or dam. The program also color-codes to indicate which genes were determined by examining the offspring and which genes where manually set by the user.
   4. Identifies any genes that appear to be in conflict with the parent's or the offspring's genetic makeup.
   5. Allows you to do experimental cross-breedings to see what colors of offspring can be produced by crossing two animals. You can pick from animals in your rabbitry, to see what they can produce, or you can select from a list of over 100 colors, without having to have animals with that phenotype.
   6. You can select a color and the program will rank the animals in your rabbitry as to their likelihood of being able to produce that color.
   7. Genetic makeup can be printed on your pedigrees.
   8. Included with the program is Color Genetics in U.S. Domestic Rabbits, written by Candy Haenszel, a clear and highly readable introduction to rabbit genetics.
3. Journaling
   1. Provides a place to keep all your personal notes, organized by date.
   2. No limit on the amount of text that you can enter for a given day.
   3. Assign a color category and/or a star rating to each entry.
   4. All entries can be searched for any combination of category, star rating or text.
4. Financial Ledger
   1. Keeps mileage records and provides mileage printouts for tax purposes.
   2. Write down expenses
   3. Sold rabbits
   4. Income
   5. Pictures of receipts
5. Pedigrees
   1. Prints Birth Certificates for pet sales. These show DOB, name, parents and rabbitry name, but do not provide contact information.
   2. Simple data entry. For instance, when entering the pedigree of a newly-purchased animal, the program displays a blank pedigree on the screen, and you just fill it in. The computer prompts you to fill in the required information for each entry. For instance, while you are entering the color of the rabbit, the computer provides a list of all ARBA-accepted varieties for that breed.
   3. Data for each animal is only entered once, regardless of how many times that rabbit appears in a pedigree. Our pedigrees show ALL vital data, unlike some other programs. For example, we include ear size on English Lops, and markings on Checkered Giants.
6. Other notes
   1. photos, pedigrees, weights, printable certificates, show winnings, notes and even the percentage of a particular ancestor contributed to a bloodline.
   2. You can record for any species.
   3. ledger tracking and entering your contacts
   4. breedings, litters, gives notifications when to do tasks (put in nest boxes, etc.), print cage cards and pedigrees, and so on
   5. I find the most useful function to be the level of inbreeding button - coefficient of inbreeding
      1. level of inbreeding below 25% when possible
      2. Inbreeding can work to identify recessive traits, although it can also double up on debilitating and lethal recessives as well.
   6. They did change the name colors for bucks and does now, though, which is nice.
      1. it'd be nice if they'd let us sort the names by gender, age, color or another variable of our choice
   7. excel day-to-day record keeping
      1. One for my daily and weekly chores, tracking weather and hutch ventilation needs, etc., as well as for upcoming needs for each rabbit
      2. Then I have another I designed and se for tracking each litter and each individual within the litter, from birth to final outcome, whatever that may be.
   8. What I like most about Kintraks and using excel is that all of my data is available locally if/when the internet goes down, I still have access to all of my data.
   9. Now I'm naming them each year in alphabetical order. Last year was 'A's with the first ones having names higher up in the stack. 'Abby' before 'Annie', etc. This year they will all be named with a 'B', so eventually, they will all be sorted by age as well as by name.
   10. I also print out hardcopies of the pedigrees just in case something happens to the program
   11. "Help" instructions
   12. Weight under the Health tab
       1. I was able to enter all 12 rabbits & loving the graph chart it automatically displays.
   13. you can add whatever categories you want as well
   14. Pedigrees - Unlimited
       Generations
   15. Unlimited Litters
   16. Graphically Track Weights
   17. Sales and Purchases
   18. No Limit Picture Storage
   19. Evaluate Rabbit
       Development
   20. Automate Litter Events
   21. Consolidated Progeny View
   22. Print Text & Photo Pedigrees
   23. Keep Unlimited Notes
   24. Rabbits Sold
   25. Income and Expenses
   26. Litter/Breeding Cards
   27. Show Records
   28. app and pc component
   29. Health and wellness checks for your rabbits - issues, fly strike?, lethargy, wounds and where, medication you give them
   30. Mark the rabbit as a keeper or cull
   31. Cage Cards with QR Codes that take you to the bunny's information on app
   32. Record compiler
       1. Ratio of does to bucks.
       2. Number of active litters and total kits.
       3. How many sold, butchered, and died/ culled.
       4. Finances, sorted by expenses and income.
       5. Total number of litters born.
       6. Average litter size.
       7. Average age to butcher and average butcher weight.
       8. Survival rate.
   33. Breeder performance
       1. Live vs. dead-born kits.
       2. Survival rates.
       3. Average litter size.
       4. Doe and buck misses.
   34. Meat performance
       1. Average kit weight per litter.
       2. Average litter growth rate.
       3. Meat produced from butchered kits.
       4. Average butcher age.

Thank you for your time and thoughts!

 

[gailbelanger]

I have been looking for a software program such as yours. How do I get involved?

 

[Estrella]

I’m a complete newbie but this sounds amazing

 

[Kaizarhiede]

Wow, this kinda blew up over the past couple days while I've been doing homework.

You have a great wishlist! I would love a calendar, with notifications sent somewhere--maybe importable to my google calendar, which then notifies by email, phone.

I'll have to figure out how to send it to google calendar (I'm sure there's plenty of examples on the web), but if it has app notifications, would you still want it to go to google calendars? Just want to know if both notifications and google calendar notifications would be wanted.

One page printable Pedigree generator that is snappy looking and clean.

If you or someone else has an example of a good-looking pedigree and the information that should be included on it, please comment it. I've only, so far, dealt with pedigrees from when I bought my rabbits, and they weren't that nice-looking. So, people who have dealt a lot more with pedigrees and the information you like written on it, would definitely help me make them better than I possibly could right now.

Ability to "sort" thru offspring by various filters is great too.

What kind of filters are you thinking? ***, weight, if it's an automatic cull, maybe medical issues...

See if you can poke around SoftmouseDB. I have used this software for work and it does some of this, but it is not perfect. This software is based on a database rather than excel/spreadsheet, so if you are not familiar with those it might be a learning curve to build on a database backbone, but it is much more powerful. As you probably know a database is ideal for collating a bunch of weird bits of info, but it is rarely user friendly. Built on a database you will end up with a saleable product if you get the user interface right.

I'll take a look! I'm trying to figure out what I want to build the software in, based on what I've used for school, but I don't know if those would be good to build it in. So, I'm going to look around and google and see if one of my teachers would have an idea of what to build it in to make it as versatile as we all want it.

Also happy to beta test when you get that far. I am familiar with bug documentation for IT professionals.

Awesome possum!!

Financial Ledger

What about expenses, feed, hay, equipment, medication, housing, etc etc etc.

A financial ledger is definitely something I will implement because it's something I want the software to do, since it's important to know if you're actually making money (if a business of any sort) and to see what your biggest expenses are.

“Weight under the Health tab

1. I was able to enter all 12 rabbits & loving the graph chart it automatically displays”

what I don’t like about Kintraks/animal breeder‘s graph below the weight is that I don’t know exactly who the other animals are when I click on the different options to see how the current rabbit compares. So I am now making a paper graph for this because I have shot myself in the foot, yet agai, by selling a rabbit that I actually should have kept for herd improvement. He left Friday and while going over my paper records last evening is when I realized my mistake. I find if I want to compare the growth rates of rabbits, I need to take screenshots of the weight charts (not the grarph, since it’s mostly useless if you want to compare just 2 or 3 individuals) and then print them out, and read the charts side by side and compare by the age and weight displa for each rabbit. It would be awesome to be able to select a few specific rabbits and be able to compare them….sort of like some online stores give us the opportunity to select a few similar products for a side by side comparison before purchasing.

That weight comparison tool seems like it would be useful and not only having a side by side comparison, but if you could put in parameters to nix babies without even having to go through the information. Ex: if baby weighs less than 3.5 lbs by week 8, mark it as a cull.
I wouldn't want to have to write out info just to compare some babies and risk getting rid of one I want, so some comparison tools would be good.

maybe make the color thing like everbreed so you can type in the color that way if someone has a unusual color like tort otter they can type it in same for the breed if you can’t type want you want it might get frustrated if the breed your rabbit are is not a option.

As for the ARBA colors and the non-ARBA colors, you could have them all available but in different colors for the allowable ones and the disqualifying ones. Kintracks has different colors for bucks and does, so different color text can be very useful.

Having a marker, whether a color or a symbol (especially for colorblindness), for ARBA and non-ARBA colors would definitely be helpful. And same with male vs female, either the standard blue and pink, or putting or at the end of names.

Having it available on aphone/tablet as well as a PC would be useful since usually only the phone is available in the rabbit yard.

This is definitely something I need to make sure I do. There's two/three ways to go about it, I'm thinking...
1) Have it be formatted to be entry-heavy. You can add your information easily on the phone, but the PC would be easier to view (and edit) information. Obviously, you'd still be able to see information, but maybe have it a bit watered-down/bare bones so you see just the information you need instead of graphs and charts, etc. Just so you don't have to go through as much to get to the (for example) "is this a cull?" information.
OR
2) The phone version has everything that the PC version does so you just need your phone and don't need to go on a PC (technically) to see and use everything in the software. I feel this way might seem overwhelming on a tiny screen with half of it covered by a keyboard when you're entering info.
OR
3) A mixture of the two / your choice.

I have been looking for a software program such as yours. How do I get involved?

I’m a complete newbie but this sounds amazing

I'm glad you're intrigued! I'm currently just in the planning stages for the software, but I'm hoping to start soon and I'll keep you all updated on the progress. It'll probably take a while to make, since I'm still learning about programming and only one person, but I hope once it gets to a minimum viable product, I'll be able to share it with people who want to beta test it so it will be even better than I could make it on my own.



Whew, that took a while to write back to everyone, but I hope I got my thoughts out well enough.
And if anyone has more ideas, let me know!

 

[KelleyBee]

You're correct, it is frustrating to write out weights of hundreds of kits just to compare and decide who needs culled and who needs to be kept. I cannot tell you how many times I have shot myself in the foot by not keeping a rabbit I should have. It would be awesome if the software would automatically filter the kits by weight (when asked) so we can see at a glance who we should consider keeping.

Of course, the decision to keep a rabbit encompasses more than just weight, but weight is certainly the first bar a rabbit must achieve, then we examine it for all of the other parameters.... malocclusion, healthy ears and eyes, SOP, coat, hips, nails, rib cage, and if a commercial meat breed, how are those shoulders, loins and hindquarters, what about the peak?

I have created a "Health Chart" that I print out and fill out by hand that I use each time I weigh kits and the aforementioned items are on that chart to check off as good, or note if it seems an issue, as well as disposition of the rabbit, genital health, knees aligned properly. Then, for any rabbit I decide to keep or sale, I harvest the handwritten data to enter into the Kintrax/Animal Breeder software using the Notes section under Health, because the software doesn't have any other provision for such data (unless I've overlooked it).

I think harvesting such data and being able to search on points, such as "teeth" for instances of malocclusion, or "peak" for instances of failure to achieve a good body type, would be amazingly helpful in determining which breeding pair gives the best overall healthy kits and which breeding pairs bring out issues to be avoided, thus perhaps no longer breed those two rabbits to each other, and vice versa.

 

[Kaizarhiede]

You're correct, it is frustrating to write out weights of hundreds of kits just to compare and decide who needs culled and who needs to be kept. I cannot tell you how many times I have shot myself in the foot by not keeping a rabbit I should have. It would be awesome if the software would automatically filter the kits by weight (when asked) so we can see at a glance who we should consider keeping.

I was thinking this would be annoying with just one litter, I can't imagine doing it with hundreds of kits! And time consuming...

Of course, the decision to keep a rabbit encompasses more than just weight, but weight is certainly the first bar a rabbit must achieve, then we examine it for all of the other parameters.... malocclusion, healthy ears and eyes, SOP, coat, hips, nails, rib cage, and if a commercial meat breed, how are those shoulders, loins and hindquarters, what about the peak?

I have created a "Health Chart" that I print out and fill out by hand that I use each time I weigh kits and the aforementioned items are on that chart to check off as good, or note if it seems an issue, as well as disposition of the rabbit, genital health, knees aligned properly. Then, for any rabbit I decide to keep or sale, I harvest the handwritten data to enter into the Kintrax/Animal Breeder software using the Notes section under Health, because the software doesn't have any other provision for such data (unless I've overlooked it).

I think harvesting such data and being able to search on points, such as "teeth" for instances of malocclusion, or "peak" for instances of failure to achieve a good body type, would be amazingly helpful in determining which breeding pair gives the best overall healthy kits and which breeding pairs bring out issues to be avoided, thus perhaps no longer breed those two rabbits to each other, and vice versa.

So, I've compiled two Information Lists I would include for rabbits and pairings. Notes are in () to explain a bit further so hopefully nobody is confused about what is written:

Rabbit Information: (Information about single rabbit)​

Quick Look Info:​

Ear Tag #: ABCD# (Write it however your system works)
***: M or F (Will change color and/or add or to end of name)
Birth weight: lb.0, lb oz, kg, g (Choose which one you want, lb.0 just means something like 9.5 lbs instead of lbs and oz)
Current weight: lb.0, lb oz, kg, g (Choose which one you want)
Average Daily Gain: lb.0/day, lb oz/day, kg/day, g/day (Know how fast your babies are growing)
Cull: Y or N, Selection of Reasons, notes for reason (Selection of reasons for the internal programming to add it to different lists and lead to information like knowing if the mother and father are not a good pairing)
Genetics: A, B, C, D, E, W, V, En, Du, Si (Fills out as much genetics as it can automatically, then lets you fill in more)
Medical Issues: Hereditary or Not Hereditary, with notes (Hereditary lets the programming know if the mother and father are not a good pairing)

Body Composition:​

Malocclusion: Y or N, Front Teeth, Back Teeth, Both (Yes or No, where is it)
Standard of Perfection: Y or N, with notes
Ears: 1 2 3 4 5 (Based on 5 star system, 1 is bad, 5 is great, may allow for a points system in the programming to know if it is an automatic cull based on your criteria)
Eyes: 1 2 3 4 5
Coat: 1 2 3 4 5
Hips: 1 2 3 4 5
Nails: 1 2 3 4 5
Rib Cage: 1 2 3 4 5
Shoulders: 1 2 3 4 5
Loins: 1 2 3 4 5
Hindquarters: 1 2 3 4 5
Peak: 1 2 3 4 5
Knees: 1 2 3 4 5
Genital Health: 1 2 3 4 5

Family Information:​

Mother: Ear #
Father: Ear #
Siblings: Ear #, Ear #, Ear #, etc.
Pedigree: Button to View
Percent Inbred: % (For your knowledge)

Outcome:​

Status: Cull, Kept for Breeding, Meat, Sold, Died, Killed, Unknown, Stillborn, with notes (For programming to know the outcome and can lead to information like knowing if mother and father make good pairing)
Meat:
Butcher Weight: # (Last Weighing before butcher)
Carcass Weight with Head and Organs and Bones: # (I know people weigh with different amounts of the animal, so you can choose which level you measure at)
Carcass Weight with Organs and Bones: #
Carcass Weight with Bones: #
Carcass Weight Meat Only: #
Percent Yield HOB: CW HOB/BW = % (So you know your live to butchered %)
Percent Yield OB: CW OB/BW = %
Percent Yield B: CW B/BW = %
Percent Yield MO: CW MO/BW = %
Sold:
$ Sold for: $##.## (Amount you sold your animal for)

Other Information: (This I added after writing the Rabbit Pairing Information below so the same information ones below will have notes, not these)​

Rabbits bred to: Ear #, Ear #, etc. (List of Ear Tag #s the animal has been bred to)
Times Bred: # (This one has a double in RPI below, but this one would be every time the doe/buck has been bred and in RPI it would be just for the pairing listed)
Miscarriages: #, Miscarriages #/Times Bred %
Times Pregnancy Took: #, Times Pregnant #/Times Bred # = %
Average Litter Size: #, Babies/Times Birthed (Average litter size for the animal)

Rabbit Pairing Information: (Information about a breeding pair)​

Basic Information:​

Mother: Ear #
Father: Ear #
Inbreeding Percent: % (How much would the babies be inbred?)
Reason for Pairing: To Bring Out a Trait, For Funsies, Other Reasons, with notes (Allows you to say why you are breeding the two, and figure out if the breeding does do what you want it to do)
Possible Baby Genetics: 25% = X, 25% = Y, 25% = Z, 25% = Q, A, B, C, D, E, W, V, En, Du, Si from Punnett Square (Gives you the genetic outcomes of the babies based on the parents' genetics)

Information About Previous Pairings/Babies:​

Times Bred: # (How many times you have bred them)
Times Pregnant: #, Pregnant/Bred = % (How many times the doe became pregnant, percent of breedings)
Times Birthed: #, Birthed/Bred = %, Birthed/Pregnant = % (Number of times the doe has given birth, births divided by total breedings percentage, births divided by time pregnant percentage)
Times Miscarried: #, Miscarried #/Pregnant # = %, Miscarried #/Bred # = % (Number of times the doe has miscarried, Miscarriages divided by times pregnant percentage, miscarriages divided by times bred percentage)
Total Babies: #
Total Babies Alive to Market: #, TBAM #/Total Babies # = % (Babies that lived to market day, and as a percentage of total babies)
Average #/Litter: Babies/Times Birthed = # (Average litter size for this pairing)
Percent Babies with Malocclusion: %
Percent Babies meeting Standard of Perfection: %
Percent Male Babies: %
Percent Female Babies: %
Baby Coloring: % Color 1, % Color 2, etc. (Maybe comparison with how it matches the Punnett Square)
Babies Kept: #, Babies Kept/Total Babies Alive to Market = %
Babies Culled: #, Babies Culled/TBAM = %
Babies with good Body Composition: #, BGBM/TBAM = %
Average Daily Gain of Babies: ADG # of all Babies/TBAM = %
Hereditary Issues with Babies: notes (Might just be a notes section to write what the issues are or I would need a list of hereditary issues to add that can be a selection for the programming to figure out percentages and such for each hereditary issue)

Some way to figure out automagically if it is a good pairing… (Some ideas)​

1. Malocclusion amount too high (or other body composition issue)
2. Amount of SOP babies is too low (based on a user level limit)
3. TBAM #/Total Babies # = low %
4. Genetics are not what you want
5. Too many hereditary issues
6. Does not meet meat rabbit needs
7. other issues with babies that mark it as a bad pairing

I'm hoping all this information will be recordable and visible and hopefully I'll be able to program in plenty of results automatically so there will be little need to manually and painstakingly find the results yourself, unless the information is in the notes section and not something the programming can read.

Is there any more information you would want recordable on the rabbits or pairings, or another section/grouping of information I should add? Or Information Lists about something? Like an Overall Information List that has all data compiled from rabbits into one so you can see something like your Total Rabbits Sold and maybe a yearly comparison to see if you're getting better results. I've only planned out these two from this comment, and, no doubt, there will be more lists and information, just looking to see what ones you all would find useful.

 

[ThunderHill]

This looks amazing! I'd love to be a beta tester!

One thing that caught my eye is the "birth weight," as I don't know if many folks weigh kits at birth. Maybe have "Starting weight" or something instead, which would be whatever the first weight is, and calculate average daily weight gain from there? Weekly average gain might be nice, too.

Great job so far!

 

[kusanar314]

Maybe as well as daily gain you could have a weekly gain, but also have it group gains, for example,
Week 1: x gain
Week 2 x gain
Week 3 x gain

that way if you are breeding for meat and are unsure as to when to harvest, you would be able to clearly see when they start leveling off and over time, if some go longer than others you will be able to see if they are following this trend and currently weigh x then based on pervious data next week they will likely weigh y and then make a decision on to cull now or wait until next week.

 

[Kaizarhiede]

This looks amazing! I'd love to be a beta tester!

Looks like I need to start compiling a list for beta testers

One thing that caught my eye is the "birth weight," as I don't know if many folks weigh kits at birth. Maybe have "Starting weight" or something instead, which would be whatever the first weight is, and calculate average daily weight gain from there?

I suppose "birth weight" or "starting weight" or "first weight" would all be a matter of semantics. I guess we'll have to figure out which one breeders prefer.

Weekly average gain might be nice, too.

Great job so far!

Maybe as well as daily gain you could have a weekly gain,

Average weekly gain is added to my list!

but also have it group gains, for example,
Week 1: x gain
Week 2 x gain
Week 3 x gain

that way if you are breeding for meat and are unsure as to when to harvest, you would be able to clearly see when they start leveling off and over time, if some go longer than others you will be able to see if they are following this trend and currently weigh x then based on pervious data next week they will likely weigh y and then make a decision on to cull now or wait until next week.

@kusanar314 Just to make sure I understand exactly what you mean. You are saying for the group gains to be an average weekly gain for the entire litter? Ex: Bun1 averaged 5 oz and Bun2 averaged 3 oz in a specific week, the group gain would be the average of 4 oz for that week.

 

[Cosima]

I would like to be a beta tester.