Setting up your livestock to reflect how you manage them on your farm is important for record keeping consistency.
There are four ways to run sheep on AgriWebb.
Mixed Age Class
Age Class
Pregnancy Status (Singles, Twins, Dries)
Sex
The way you set up your livestock to start with is not set in stone. Changing livestock’s details is simple and can match the timing of key events on-farm such scanning where you may wish to make changes to livestock configuration.
1: Mixed Age livestock:
When adding mixed aged livestock, select Ewes as the age class from the drop down list.
Next, select an Ear Tag Colour option.
For mixed age livestock select the Mixed tag option.
Livestock with a mixed ear tag is identified with an M on their icon.
If you have existing livestock you would like to merge together into a mixed aged group, follow the steps outlined in our article Merge Livestock.
2: Age Class Livestock
If you manage your livestock according to ear tag colours and specific age groups, begin by choosing the age class of the livestock from the drop down list.
Livestock Age Classes will place restrictions on the ability to input certain records pertaining to livestock reproductive processes such as weaning, joining, scanning and marking. The record capabilities of these age classes are outlined below:
Lambs (Ewe and Wether): Lambs are recently born individuals and remain within this age class until they have been weaned from their mother. Whilst in this age class you are able to record the Weaning.
Ewe Weaners: These are females that have recently been removed from their mothers, generally still under 12 months of age. Within mob records, you will be bale to record joining, marking and scanning for this age class.
Ewe Hoggets: These are juvenile females that are over 12 months of age that is yet to have their first lamb. You are able to record joining, marking and scanning within this age class.
Ewes: These are mature female sheep that have previous lambed, they are eligible for joining, marking and scanning records to be input.
Next, select an Ear Tag Colour that corresponds to the year they were born. In AgriWebb we use the 8 year MLA tagging system as a guide only. If you use a different system on farm, feel free to select any colour you wish. The year won’t have any impact on the livestock information.
As you move livestock around the paddocks you will see livestock with different tag colours identified on their icon with a coloured dot indicating different age groups within that paddock.
3: Pregnancy Status (Singles, Twins & Drys)
Feed requirements of each of these groups vary, just as your management practices do. As a result, it may be important to you to be able to identify livestock by their pregnancy status.
You’re able to set up your ewes to indicate their pregnancy status using the tips below.
Whether livestock is assigned mixed tag or coloured tags, apply a scanning record to the whole group to accurately record the results, including their scanning percentage.
Following this, you can Draft and Split the livestock according to the results.
Once you have moved the livestock into their target paddocks you can create an Add Tag record and add a Management Tag according to their pregnancy status.
Type in Drys, Singles, Twins or Triplets into the Management Tag field and click Save.
This Management tag can be used to filter through records and reports to quickly obtain total numbers of each group and where they are on the farm.
4: Rams
Common practice for larger ram flocks is to set them up as one mixed aged group, with a mixed ear tag for the majority of the year. Once you reach joining time, you can Draft and Split as you put them out with the ewes. At this time you can utilise the Management Tag field to include their ear tag number to identify them individually.
If you have a small number of rams, feel free to set them up as individuals, specifying the Number of Head as 1 and using their individual tag number as either their Name or Management Tag.
Sheep FAQ's
Bred or Purchased?
When adding livestock you will be prompted to select if they have been bred or purchased. If the livestock has been purchased, ensure that you fill out the relevant details as once the livestock are created, you will not be able to change the livestock origin from bred to purchased.
Purchase records from across all of your livestock can be viewed from the Purchase Records report.
Lambs
The best way to get your lambs into AgriWebb is to use the Marking record found under a maternal livestock group’s record options. This will create the new group of lambs for you and will link them to their maternal group. Additionally, this prompts the marking percentage to populate in your Fertility Report.
Your lamb groups can then be managed in the same way as other groups in AgriWebb.
Merge Livestock
Merging livestock means combining multiple groups of the same type into a single livestock group. Merging is possible when the Age Class, Breed, Tag Colour and Management Tags are the same.
Merging is not automatic because when livestock is merged together, the records of both groups are also combined. Follow this guide to learn how to Merge Livestock.
More Helpful Links
You can learn more about Sheep records from the following articles!