- Identity is the foundation of ancestry
- Keep performance connected to pedigree
- Archive animals without deleting their relationships
A pedigree starts with identity
Every rabbit needs one unambiguous profile. Record the identifier used in the rabbitry, sex, breed or variety, birth date, status and origin. If a tattoo, tag or registration number exists, store it consistently.
Avoid creating a new profile each time an animal appears in a litter or breeding record. Duplicate identities split ancestry and make future relationship checks unreliable.
Track parents and provenance
Connect sire and dam whenever they are known. For purchased rabbits, retain the breeder, source and the pedigree details provided at acquisition. If a parent is unknown, leave that field unknown; a clean gap is safer than an assumption that travels through future generations.
Make the pedigree operational
A family tree explains relationship, but breeding decisions need more context. Keep weights, health events, reproductive history and outcomes attached to the same rabbit. This allows a breeder to review both ancestry and actual farm performance before choosing a pair.
For does, repeated litter and survival results become especially valuable. For bucks, outcomes across multiple does can reveal influence that is difficult to see from appearance alone.
Preserve history when status changes
Sold, retired, culled and deceased animals should leave the active-herd view without disappearing from the database. Their children still need parents, and their past results still explain the current herd.
Use explicit statuses and dates so active counts remain honest while pedigree relationships remain intact.
Review data quality regularly
Before a major breeding plan, scan for missing sex, impossible birth dates, duplicate animals and parent relationships that do not make chronological sense. Small corrections made early prevent large pedigree problems several generations later.