Keeping records

[WILLYMEL]

Can I hitchhike onto this topic and ask a related question?

When you keep your records what type of data do you record?

Thanks in Advance,

HI I have a book ech page is 1 pr birds this for gouldians i put sex and leg ring and were they come from
date layed
how many eggs
how many is good
date hatch
how many hatch
how many out nest
baby what they are and ring
comments -like ;-eggs small, hot/cold week,after 2 days 2 baby dead ,3 look good but 1 small

1/2 in book i put for my mix finches mosty baby and what ring and cage come from
i do this so i no that bird from that cage and pr

[FinchGirl]

At the beginning when I only had a handful of unrelated birds, and knew nothing about breeding, I didn’t keep any written records or ring birds because I knew them all by eye. Pretty quickly you realise you need to ring and record! Started with an exercise book but as I am quite partial to a nice spreadsheet, I found a basic Excel page easier to work with and expand. I have a sort of ‘family tree’, each entry is coloured the same as the bird’s ring with L/R ring location, date hatched/fledged, gender and basic colour description. I’ve found this works for me as I like visual representation, however it does get busy as your flock grows. A program would be a lot easier, but whatever works! Just good to keep track of things, age/breeding history etc, especially if you want to do specific pairing but avoid inbreeding.