RECORD KEEPING OF ANIMALS

RECORD KEEPING

Importance of Record Keeping

Complete and accurate records are the backbone of any profitable enterprise. Maintenance of adequate records helps in making correct management decisions and increasing profits.

Generally, farm records are of two types: financial and physical.

The financial records include input and output made in the farming business. Input usually includes the allocation of land to the farm both for growing fodder and grazing, purchase of feeds and supplements, labour charges, interest, depreciation and miscellaneous charges such as veterinary aid and overhead costs. Output includes all sales of farm produce. It is important to prepare a farm inventory to assess the value of the stock at the beginning and end of each period.

Physical records are necessary to evaluate the performance of animals over a period. The maintenance of such records varies to some extent according to the farm animal species involved such as dairy animals, sheep, goats. Keeping in view the sheep as an example, possibly following records may be maintained:

List of Registers to be maintained at a Sheep Farm

●	Birth register	●	Young stock register
●	Adult stock register	●	Livestock account register
●	Disposal register	●	Mortality register
●	Weighment register (adult stock)	●	Weighment register (young stock)
●	Rams performance register	●	Ewes performance register
●	Veterinary register	●	Feed register
●	Mating register	●	Individual sheep record
	Wool register

		A few specimens of forms for keeping sheep records
				Table 6.		Birth register
S.No.	Breed	Tattoo	Sex	Colour	Date of	Sire	Dam	Weight at	Weight of dam	Remarks
		No.			birth			birth (kg)	after lambing
									(kg)
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11

			Table 7.		Young Stock Register
S.No.	Tatoo No	Date of	Sex	Colour and	Sire	Dam	Date of transfer	Inoculations	Remarks
	of lamb	birth		identification			to adult stock
				marks
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	11

					Table 8.	Adult Stock Register
	S.No.	Brand	Date of	Sex	Colour and	Sire	Dam		If purchased		Inoculation	Disposal	Remarks
		No.	birth		identification			Date Value From whom
					marks
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13

							Table 9.				Livestock Account Register
Year											Month:									Breed:
Date			Opening stock				Addition by transfer or					Total							Disposal							Total
		Adult		Young				purchases							Deaths*				Transfers
		M	F	M		F	Adult			Young				Adult		Young		Adult		Young		Adult		Young
							MFMF							M	FMFMFMFMFMF
1		2	3	4		5	6	7		8	9	10		11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23
Closing balance								Remarks
Adult			Young
M		F	M	F
24		25	26	27				28

*Note: Mortality percentage should be given at the end of the month in remarks column.

Table 10.

Disposal Register

Breed:

Year:

S.No.

Date of

Animal

Breed

Sex

Date of

Type of Disposal

Reason

Book

Amount

Remarks

Disposal

No.

birth

Deaths

Sales for

Transfer to

for

value

realized

breeding

other

disposal

stations

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

				Table11.		Mortality Register
	S.No.	Animal No.	Breed	Sex	Date of	Date of	Cause of	P.M.	Book	Remarks
					birth	death	death	Report No.	value
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10

Table 12.

Rams Performance Register

Ram No.:

Breed:

Date

of Birth:

S.

Year

No. of

No. of

No. of

Average birth

No. of lambs

Average

Average

Average

Remarks

No.

and

ewes

ewes

lambs born

weight of

weaned at 120

weaning

weight at one

weight at

season

mated

lambed

lambs (kg)

days

weight (kg)

year (kg)

the end of

Ist year

(kg)

MF

M

F

M

F

M

FM

F

MF

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

			Table 13.		Ewes Performance Register
Ewe No.:											Date
of birth:
S.No.	Year and	Ewe	Date of	Date of				Lamb			Remarks
	season	mated	mating	lambing	Sex	Birth	Weight	Weaning	Weight at	1 year’s
							(kg)	weight at	one year	wool
								120 days	(kg)	yield
								(kg)
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12

					Table 14.		Wool Register
											Year:
	S.No.	Date of	Tag No.				Quality				Remarks
		shearing	of the	Fleece	Clean	Staple	Fiber	Crimps	Medullation	Fleece
			animal	weight	fleece	length	diameter	per cm	percentage	density
				(kg)	weight	(cm)	(microns)
					(kg)
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11

Share: