How to record your cats

[Troubadoura Resident]

I have been reading through the breeding threads and noticed that several people talk about setting up spreadsheets with your starter cats to track things. Obviously I'm new. I probably don't have this stated correctly. But I'm looking for some examples of how people start tracking their information of their cats and their breeding. I'd rather start out with a good model of recording than try through trial and error. If anyone would care to share, or direct me to some examples in the Forum, I would appreciate it.

[Liriel Garnet]

(09-07-2013 08:10 AM)Troubadoura Resident Wrote:  I have been reading through the breeding threads and noticed that several people talk about setting up spreadsheets with your starter cats to track things. Obviously I'm new. I probably don't have this stated correctly. But I'm looking for some examples of how people start tracking their information of their cats and their breeding. I'd rather start out with a good model of recording than try through trial and error. If anyone would care to share, or direct me to some examples in the Forum, I would appreciate it.

Everyone does it differently, depending on what works best for your own tastes and personality. Some use paper and pen, others use notecards or google docs. Others use various spreadsheets or database applications.

Personally I use Excel, though it's set up so that with a few tweaks and queries, I could actually feed it into a relational DB quite easily. I have three main sheets that I use to hold every cat and box -- one sheet has live cats, one has 'gone' cats whether by sale or menagerie, the other contains all my boxes. All three of the main sheets contains all info I have on the cats in various columns, including all shown traits, known and potential hiddens, and parents (or a note where I acquired it, if I didn't breed it). I have other sheets that I use for things like doing pairings that all reference back to data on one of the three main sheets.

I know someone else that uses excel that has a separate sheet for every one of their cats. Bottom line, a lot of how you set up your record-keeping depends on what you, personally, are comfortable with maintaining and find easy to use.

BTW, now that they have added notes into the pedigrees, you can use those notes to track all your notes and hidden trait info straight in the pedigree, if you choose to do so, you won't even have to have an outside program.

[Luna1987 Resident]

I only track starter cats and possible traits hidden. I start by listing the cat and all of the starter traits on a google doc. then i leave a black space and list the same for the partner (weather it be a starter or trated kitty) then as i breed them i look at what trates i am getting and list on the blank lines under the cats "start" trait.... so if i have a foxie salt and pepper mate with a starter and i get a T & W tabbie then i know my starter hides the T & W so i put that under the starter fur.

[LibGwen Resident]

How much documentation you need is influenced by your goals in breeding. The needs of someone who simply wants to uncover the mysterious hiddens are different from someone who is chasing the deepest traits, which are different from someone who wants to put together specific traits as a project.

I use the lengthier method of written documents, because if I discover I've made a mistake in my assumptions (or wonder if I did) I want to be able to go back and see where I went wrong (or prove I didn't). For each box or born cat I have a block listing its shown traits with parentheticals saying what the most dominant each hidden could be and which parent (if I know) it must have come from.

Every time I discover something that changes my assumptions I write a line at the bottom of the cat's or box's block listing the date, what it changed from, what it changed to, and which cats made me think that.

When I birth cats I transfer those cats' blocks to individual files. I keep track of offspring data in the females' files until the female retires, because it tends to change a lot. When she retires from breeding I move her file to a subdirectory called "Retired".

If I sell a box, I note in its block in the mother's file that I sold it, but I never erase it from the mother's file because there have been times I've wanted to see my notes on boxes I no longer own.

[Troubadoura Resident]

(09-21-2013 05:12 AM)LibGwen Resident Wrote:  How much documentation you need is influenced by your goals in breeding. The needs of someone who simply wants to uncover the mysterious hiddens are different from someone who is chasing the deepest traits, which are different from someone who wants to put together specific traits as a project.

I use the lengthier method of written documents, because if I discover I've made a mistake in my assumptions (or wonder if I did) I want to be able to go back and see where I went wrong (or prove I didn't). For each box or born cat I have a block listing its shown traits with parentheticals saying what the most dominant each hidden could be and which parent (if I know) it must have come from.

Every time I discover something that changes my assumptions I write a line at the bottom of the cat's or box's block listing the date, what it changed from, what it changed to, and which cats made me think that.

When I birth cats I transfer those cats' blocks to individual files. I keep track of offspring data in the females' files until the female retires, because it tends to change a lot. When she retires from breeding I move her file to a subdirectory called "Retired".

If I sell a box, I note in its block in the mother's file that I sold it, but I never erase it from the mother's file because there have been times I've wanted to see my notes on boxes I no longer own.

Thanks, all these tips are useful... i know i want to record things, but i'm still not sure how.. and all these ideas help me think about it.

[Serena Stroikavskoi]

It really does depend on how detailed you want to keep records.

The pedigree page is wonderful as now I can record breeding projects or note ideas on what kind of breed I want for the kitten.

It seems to me you more in wanting details than anything else. As already noted some use a document to keep notes on what they are doing. Some use spreadsheets to keep track of live, boxed, and retired. Depending on what you use is going to be influenced I'm sure by what you are comfortable with in tools. Like MS Office or Open Office, even a website can be used. Doing documents you can keep track of the kitty ID per page with notes on what is showing as traits and what has been produced as offspring when paired with other traits. A spreadsheet you can mark columns as shown traits and hidden traits and fill in as you discover them.

I personally use MS Access to keep track of all mine with shown traits (which I put in immediately) and hidden traits as I find them. The database has a field I have to indicate a live, box, sold, or menagerie kitty. I have a field for kitty id, notes, as well as who or how I got the kitten. In the event I need more information on a kitten I have purchased. It's set up to mark traits as retired or limited edition and even when the box was birthed or bred.

I think that is what everyone is getting at on keeping track. It ranges from the light notes to keep track of even just a few details to keeping track on the whole cattery. Like I said it will depend on what you are comfortable using. If you have something your not comfortable with it gets frustrating and you stop using it.

[Misa Delight]

hellos!
I used to track kitties with spreadsheet but now I just use pedigree pages and online cattery.

Online cattery lets you pick partners by traits - so it is very helpful when I am trying to get recessive traits out of a kitty's background I can just pair with a cat that is showing a more recessive trait.

Also now the pedigree pages have notes! So it's getting even easier for me to have all the info in the website.

Welcome to Kittycats!