Question about ID numbers and labeling multiple animals in a collection

Hey guys I did 9 searches in the forums and came up with nothing.....I wanted to know how you guys go about numbering your BPs with ID numbers?

I know with clutches it's usually the year, the clutch number, and the number in the clutch (eg: 11-3-01 2011-clutch 3-hatchling #1)

But what about snakes you already own and breeders? Do you just do the year they were born and then give them a number? I am increasing my collection and want to be able to label them with numbers to more easily keep track, even though they all have names ;) I want them to have "official" IDs for my record keeping. Thanks for the info!

Do you already have a tracking software program? If not I'd suggest Degei. I've been using it for several years now and absolutely love it! As far as ID's go, I personally do something to the effect of MOJ_FEM_09_1 or PPHG_FEM_10_3 so the first one is a 2009 Mojave female number 1 and the second one is a 2010 Pastel Poss. Het Ghost female number 3. Hope this helps!

I always start with the year, morph and sex

2006_Spi_F1
2008_BP_F1 I also have a 2008_BP_F2 (BP standing for black pastel in that case)

And so on

I use Degei, which has nice automation for setting up IDs for clutches.

Once set up, it produces whatever ID numbers you want: Mine go something like 'WWP-BP-11-01', 'WWP-BP-11-02', etc.

It doesn't allow you to automatically create IDs that include morph or gender, but you can also choose to set up the records manually if you want.

I take care of the rest of by naming the animal after its sire and dam, morph and gender, and then ID number (which would be 'o1', or '02', etc). So, the animal with the ID 'WWP-BP-11-01' would be named 'KalikaXAnansi_NormFem_01'

Really, how you choose to ID your animals is entirely up to you, there's no system everyone uses.

i use a system (and imput it into excel) where i start with the overall # (starting over every year), the year, then m/f, then the genetic ID.. and the genetic ID can be whatever abbreviations you like best.

SO.. lets say i have:
2010
2010 pastel het ghost female : 1-10F-Ps.Gh
2010 Spider male: 2-10M-Sp

2011
2011 Piebald female: 1-11F-Pie
2011 Pastel Het Clown Male: 2-11M-Ps.Cl

i like this system best because you can keep track of clutches and just use the overall # and know which snakes came in which clutch etc.

ex: say i have a clutch and and i want to know which snakes came in it i can look at the record and see snakes 43-51 came in that clutch then i can look up their records

Ok thanks everyone!! I have 30 snakes right now and I need to start a system for them....esp because I am starting to get multiple morphs (like I have 3 spiders and 2 of them are clutchmates) and I am upto 4 het pied girls, so I need a way to keep track. I can't really do the clutch thing because I did not hatch them. SO I guess I could just start with a number for them, M or F, their birth year, morph...maybe like
1-10-F-HPd
2-10-F-HPd
3-11-M-Cinn
4-11-M-Bee
5-10-M-Bee



I have been using iHerp which I LOVE....it is SO easy, it allowed me to print out worksheets, transfer animals when I sell them, and add photos. But it will let me put in my own animal ID (in addition to their name) so I just didn't know what to put, if I should just pick numbers for them in the order i purchased them or what.

Thanks for all the suggestions!!

This is mine:

09MPastel001, the next on the list would be
09FNormal002 (for example). The last three numbers are just in order of when I got them.