Breeder Records Software

[natamambo]

With BEP I read that you cannot split pairs up to re pair with out either deleting the pair first, or keeping the original pair and creating another pair but that then gives you a false count on the overall pairs.
Is that right? Also, do you need to go online to track keep or is that just for updates?

Yes, if you leave the default breeding seasons. I'm a "fiddler" (one reason why my programmers used to hate me, I could break their software faster than any of our end users ) and created breeding seasons, one called 2011 Summer, starts 1/1/2011 and ends 30/6/2011 (for the Gouldians) and another 2011 Spring, starts 1/7/2011 and ends 31/12/2012 (for the rest). If you change seasons from summer to spring all the existing pairs "disappear" of the list / pair count and you can start creating pairs again. Change the season back to 2011 Summer and all the existing pair history is still there. If you have 2011 Summer as the current breeding period (right now) you have an extra pair. if you make 2011 Spring the current season it correctly reports that you have one pair.

I'm running WinXP on a Mac through Parallels so I can't test what would happen to the counts if I change dates to spring before adding the pair as the Mac drives the Windows clock and "fixes" the clock as fast as I change it to August .

There is no need to go online except for updates, all data is local.

There is a downloadable file for Gouldians now which has the genetics and seems to work. I had added all the genetics before the downloaded file and you had to add the Gouldiansd yourself it wasn't even in the species. Then (a whole 5 weeks ago) it didn't display the genetics properly for some reason (double factor and dominant birds eg yellow back, red head) where two genes were present it listed teh genes twice but in the downloadable file that doesn't happen.

[bleeding green]

I downloaded Zooeasy and had a play with that. Seems to do what I need it to do. Seeing as how you have compared the two already what down sides did you find to zoo easy. It doesn't have too many options re genetics, you just enter the species and the colour.
I will try bep 2moro.
Buzz, with your one can you pull up history on previous pairings which could then show there offspring, or is the only way to look at each individual bird and trace it's pedigree backwards?

[Buzzard-1]

look at each individual bird and trace it's pedigree backwards?

That's the way I've always done it. I'll have a play today and see.

[bleeding green]

Thanks Buzz, I have to get onto something real quick. I was just going to form up a schedule on excel but I'd prefer something a bit more technical than that. I have put it off for too long but now I have a few young ones starting to appear and if I don't keep track now it's going to blow out.

[shanny2]

why don't you do it the old fashion way pen and paper i am writing a record now as well as keeping my bird records on finch breeder database as in new or deceased birds

[bleeding green]

I have a few birds, although not as many as some of the dedicated fincho's on here. Pen and paper is good but software usually allows for corrections to be made, more lines or info to be added etc. Once your page is full it's full, then your info can get a bit fragmented. With software and you can also search for aprticular details or print out pedigree reports, or all the info on a particular bird quite easily.

[E Orix]

I am old fashioned, a pen and exercise book.
It seems to work ok for me.Its in the bird room and unless the mice eat it I can just turn the pages.
As I told someone recently,not so long ago I found one of my old books from the early 70's most interesting reading.
Brought back memories of what I had and what I was breeding.

[jusdeb]

Pen and paper here also not from want of a good pc system but for lack of computer skills and better things to do with $$$$ at the moment ...

Did find some pretty good lineage charts and other half made me up some breeding record sheets so away we go with that .

[bleeding green]

Hey Natamambo, I've been trying out BEP. It seems good once you get used to it. I've set up the seasons and that works well. However when I go to the pairs>egg>option and select 'add multiple eggs for the selected pair' it doesn't add them to the current season. For me it was adding them to another season in my season list. So I tried deleting that season and all the data in it. Try to ad multiple eggs in one go again and even though it says that they were successfully added I can't see where they go.
However I can add the eggs individually and add them to a current clutch and that all seems to be working fine.
Also, I haven't got that far yet but when you see a 'descendants' option does it show all descendants for all seasons or just the descendants for the current season?

I think this type of software can work really well for breeding a large number of pairs from the same species. It's a bit too involved for those who might breed 1 or 2 pairs only of the same species.

[Myzomela]

Hi EOrix,

Would you be willing to share some of these early &0s experiences with us?

I'm sure we'd love to know what was available back then- even if it only makes us groan...or turn us green with envy!

Cheers

Myzomela