Sheep Ewe Breeding Performance

Sheep Flock Management.

FarmIT 3000 provides the capability to maintain a sheep holding register for official purposes and individual animal details for breeding and performance. In the UK the minimum requirement for recording sheep and goats is the sheep holding register. This register consists of 5 sections for movements on and off the holding, death, births, losses etc. It also maintains a running total of animals on the holding although this is not a mandatory requirement. With minor differences this information is the same for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, although the layout of reports does vary.

You can open the register in one of three ways:
1. Access via Reports menu by selecting Reports - Farm Official Registers - Sheep - Sheep Movement Register.
2. Access via Sheep menu by selecting Sheep - Flock - Sheep Movement Register.
3. Simply double click on 'Sheep and Flocks' from the navigation tree.

Once open, you may select the appropriate regional layout before printing. You may also select Print Preview to view your register.

Pedigree or Commercial Flocks with individually recorded animals

If you record your animals as individuals, your flock register is maintained automatically as you enter movement records, lambing records, deaths and losses. So there is no need to enter manually records into the flock register.

Commercial Flock without Individual records

If you do not wish to create individual sheep records you may maintain the flock register manually, by the direct entry of records for lambs born, deaths. Movements are still done through the movements menu.

Slaughter tagged Lambs

If you are tagging your lambs with 'Slaughter' tags ( displaying only the flock number ) you do not need to record the individual numbers on movements, but can simply record the flock number and number sold/moved.

Mixing Recorded and Unrecorded Animals

You may still enter manual records into a flock of individually recorded animals. This for example would apply in the UK from 2010 onwards, where the flock record for animals born from 1st Jan 2010 onwards and retained for breeding needs to record their individual numbers, but existing animals can still be recorded on a flock basis.

Sheep Flocks within FarmIT

Your sheep holding register will contain all movements, deaths, losses etc for all sheep on a holding and is based on the holding number. You may however create multiple flocks as management aids lnked to a specific holding number. For example, you may have a commercial flock and a pedigree flock. Movements for both flocks will be visible within the register. You may also create a flock for a managed or linked holding.

If your flock is tagged individually then feeding and treating may be performed individually or by management group. If not you may treat and feed against the flock record. The limitation is that you may not actually do both in the same flock. Records recorded against the flock will only show against the flock, as will records recorded against the individual animals.

If you wish to record comprehensive breeding records it is essential that the animals are recorded individually, and although this may seem a difficult task, if you switch to electronic tagging you may soon benefit from the time saved identifying animals, accurate breeding records and identification and selection of breeding animals.

Should you wish to record details of individually tagged sheep we would suggest reviewing the animal details section under the Beef Cattle section as many of the methods of treating, feeding or moving animals are the same once you elect to identify your sheep individually.

See Setting up your flock