We get a lot of questions from people wondering how to handle births of lambs, calves and other animals in Farmware. Let’s look at the logic and a couple of scenarios on how to handle your newborns.

The most relevant activities here are Mark and Births [Add Livestock Activity > Breeding]. When you count the new drop of animals you would do one of these activities. But what happens after this is your choice, and it may well be different from the bloke next door depending on how you wish to view your offspring.

To make things consistent we’ll just use the example of sheep. Based on user feedback, these are the main ways people want to regard their mob’s offspring:

1. Lambs in the same mob as ewes
2. Lambs as a division of the ewe mob
3. Lambs in their own mob

Let's take a closer look at each of these scenarios:

1. Lambs in the same mob as ewes

Benefit: This keeps things really simple, when you do activities on the whole mob you only need to select the ewe mob.

Considerations: Farmware knows which age groups you have in the mob but it won’t know how many in each age group, unless you search your activities for the original mobs.

How:
After you create the lamb mob using the Mark or Births activities you then do a Combine activity [Mob Management > Combine].
Select the first mob (ewes) then hit the “+” button and select the second mob (lambs).
Combine method: Merge Together
Into this Mob: Ewes
Save

2. Lambs as a division of the ewe mob

Benefit: This allows you to keep the lamb mob separate to maintain accurate numbers and treatment records, but keeps it closely associated with the mothers.

Considerations: Although a lot clearer in the Livestock Summary, it's still a bit tricky to see at a glance how many lambs you have when you have multiple mobs of lambs.

How:
After you create the lamb mob using the Mark or Births activities you then do a Combine activity under Mob Management.
Select the first mob (ewes) then hit the “+” button and select the second mob (lambs).
Combine method: Keep Separate As Divisions
Into this Mob: Ewes
Rename Mob and Divisions as necessary
Save

3. Lambs in their own mob

Benefit: This method is the clearest way to keep track of the lambs as an age group. And especially useful if you combine all new lamb mobs into one mob.

Considerations: Keeping an association with the mother mobs will rely on a descriptive name of the mob or divisions. Eg: “Lambs of orange tag ewes”

How:  
The Mark or Births activities will have done it already!

BUT you may have multiple lamb mobs that you wish to combine into one, so in this case:
After you create the lamb mob using the Mark or Births activities you then do a Combine activity under Mob Management.
Select the first mob (Lambs of orange tag ewes) then hit the “+” button and select the second mob (Lambs of purple tag ewes).
Combine method: Keep Separate As Divisions
Into this Mob: choose any of the lamb mobs, say "Lambs of orange tag ewes"
Rename Mob: you could call it “Merino Lambs”
Other Division Name: The mob you just chose to combine into… this is now a mob division, so make sure it reads: "Lambs of Orange tag ewes"
Save