Rat Breeding Records

[Jay_Bunny]

While away on vacation, my new roommate was supposed to care for the animals. He somehow got water all over my rat records book and the ink bled to the point of washing away every bit of information in it. I couldn't recover a thing. Now thankfully, some of my info, I put on excel spreadsheets and I'm attempting to go through that today and redo the records book.

My records book is simple. I write down the location of each tub and what I did with that tub. For example, if I pulled feeders from the tub I'll write down R1T1 - pulled 5.3 feeders from Female X. Each page is for one day that way I can keep better track of litter dates and such. After a while, I update my excel spreadsheets with the info. Right now, every female and every male has their own sheet that includes their name, genetics (color/pattern, and any known recessives), litter information, birthdate (if known), and sex.

Is there an easier way of keeping all this information? I breed for feeders mostly but I also want to play around with genetics so I want to keep accurate records. Now that my record book was destroyed, I'm going to have a time of it recovering the info as its been several weeks, almost a few months since I last updated the excel records.

What do you use for record keeping?

[PitOnTheProwl]

For my rats I have a dri erase board on each rack. I write down when males when in ad out of tubs.
Also when litters are born.

[Jay_Bunny]

That would be useful for quick jot downs but as I'd like to breed for certain traits, I need to keep detailed records. I also want to avoid inbreeding if I can so keeping track of who is related to who is important.

[PitOnTheProwl]

LoL, I breed just for food.

[Jay_Bunny]

Yea, if I was only breeding for feeders, I may not care as much about the genetics, but I want a good strong colony so I want to pay attention to it. I'm also looking to improve color, temperament, and confirmation.

[bettagurl]

Inbreeding is actually a good tool, it helps solidify good traits and you can weed out bad recessives faster. Try using a download called breeders assistant or zooeasy. I used BA for years. The free version lets you keep track of up to 100 animals- I just had different saves for different lines.

I also wrote notes on my iPhone or iPad- no more pen and paper since it can get messed up as you found out. The speak to text feature helps me ramble off info quickly lol.

[Sp00ky]

That would be useful for quick jot downs but as I'd like to breed for certain traits, I need to keep detailed records. I also want to avoid inbreeding if I can so keeping track of who is related to who is important.

If you use an iPad or iPhone, you can look up apps for journals/personal diaries that allow pictures to be attached. Each of my my rats have a page with a good pic attached to it. Easy to keep up with age, litter birth dates, litter size, which male was used to breed, etc. It makes it easier to see who is doing what and when. Especially if you have a VERY large colony. At some point, they all look the same. Lots of browns... Lots of hooded with spots... LOL