Register, house, group and move an animal

What this workflow achieves

Use this workflow when an animal first joins a farm or later changes housing, working cohort, farm or active-herd status. Following the correct action preserves one continuous identity and movement history instead of creating duplicate or contradictory records.

These records mean different things:

Record	Meaning
Farm	The animal’s current operational farm. An animal has one current farm.
Pen	Its current physical housing location within that farm. An animal has at most one current pen.
Group	A logical working cohort such as high SCC, breeding exposure or dry-off planning. An animal can belong to several groups.
Internal transfer	A move to another farm in the same Farmlync organisation. The existing animal identity moves.
Exit	A terminal departure from the organisation’s active herd, such as sale, death or culling.

Changing a pen does not change groups. Changing a group does not move the animal physically. An internal transfer is not a sale or terminal exit.

1. Check whether the animal already exists

Before registering:

1. Confirm the selected farm in the header.
2. Open Livestock → Animals → Animals list.
3. Search by management tag, name and official identifier.
4. Clear restrictive filters if the animal is not visible.
5. Check Departures and, where appropriate, the organisation’s other farms.

If the animal already exists on another farm in the same organisation, use Transfer to farm. If it was accidentally deleted, use the Deleted view and assess Restore. If it previously left and the departure itself was wrong, review Reverse exit. Do not create a new identity to work around a status, location or access problem.

2. Open Register animal

Choose Register animal from the farm dashboard or Animals list. Registration has two steps:

1. Identity & Birth describes the animal itself.
2. Farm Entry & Parentage describes how it joined the selected farm, its current state, identifiers, housing and known parents.

Selecting Next — Farm Entry validates step 1 but does not save. The animal is created only by Register & Close or Register & Add Next on step 2.

The organisation must have animal capacity, and you must have animal-management authority. If farm settings fail to load, retry them rather than continuing with an assumed farm type.

3. Complete Identity & Birth

Field	What to record
Tag Number *	Required management tag, at most 50 characters. Spaces around it are removed and letters are stored uppercase. It must be unique in the selected farm.
Name	Optional familiar or pedigree name, at most 100 characters. It does not replace the tag.
Breed *	Required breed from the farm’s applicable dairy, beef or dual-purpose catalogue.
Sex *	Female or Male; Beef and Mixed farms also allow Steer. A newborn that will later be castrated is registered as Male and the castration is recorded separately.
Date of birth *	Required actual birth date, no later than today in the farm timezone.
Birth weight (kg)	Positive birth weight. Required for Beef and Mixed farms and optional for Dairy. Do not enter current weight here.
Colour	Optional colour available for the breed, up to 50 characters.
Horn status	Optional Horned, Polled, Dehorned, Disbudded or Unknown.

Leaving the tag field can trigger an availability check. That check is guidance, not a reservation; the final save checks again. If the tag is already in use, inspect the existing animal rather than altering the real identifier to force a new record.

Where pedigree-name generation is available, an authorised user can configure a herd prefix and select Generate pedigree name. Generation advances the sequence immediately, even if this animal form is later cancelled. It does not register the name with an external breed society.

4. Record how the animal entered the farm

In step 2, choose the factual entry type:

Field	Valid use
Entry type *	Born on Farm, Purchased, Transferred In, Gifted or Leased, as offered by the form. Choosing Transferred In here describes an external arrival; it does not move an existing Farmlync animal between organisation farms.
Entry date *	For Born on Farm it follows the birth date. Otherwise enter the actual arrival date. It cannot precede birth.
Historical registration	For an animal born here in the past whose current stage, pregnancy or lactation must be recorded now. It does not alter the birth or entry date.
Source	For a non-Born entry, record the seller, market or other source.
Purchase price	Optional non-negative amount for Purchased. Zero is allowed. This is provenance, not an inventory receipt or payment.

Current state for incoming or historical animals

The current-state controls appear for non-Born entries and historical Born entries.

Field	What to enter
Lifecycle stage	Choose the animal’s true current stage. Default uses age, sex and farm-type classification and may be wrong for an adult imported animal.
Pregnancy status	Female only: Open, Bred, Confirmed pregnant or Late gestation.
Lactation #	Female only, whole number 1–20. Required when Lactating is selected.
Days in milk	Female only, whole number 0–600. Farmlync derives the opening lactation start from today minus this value. It is not a milk-yield field.
Expected calving date	Required when pregnancy is Confirmed or Late. Use the documented expected date.

An animal younger than 56 days must enter as Calf. Stage choices change with farm type, sex and steer status. For example, Dairy females offer Calf, Heifer, Lactating and Dry; Beef animals also use Weaner, Stocker/growing, Finisher and Cow/Bull as applicable. Check the chosen stage rather than relying blindly on Default.

5. Enter identification

Field	Purpose and limit
RFID	Optional electronic identity, up to 100 characters. It must not duplicate an existing animal RFID in the enforced scope.
National ID	Official identifier, up to 100 characters and required when farm policy says so. Follow the connected registry’s displayed format and check digit.
Registration #	Optional breed-society or registry number, up to 100 characters.
Markings	Optional distinguishing description, up to 200 characters.

When the farm has available Tag Pool entries, National ID becomes a searchable picker. Select the allocated tag when possible; its electronic identity can populate RFID. A manual value is still checked when committed and again when saved. A valid or locally available identifier does not mean a government registry has accepted it—the external registration has its own status and workflow.

6. Set initial housing, groups and parentage

Field	What to choose
Pen	Optional physical pen on this farm. Leave clear when housing is not yet known.
Groups	Optional logical cohorts; several can be selected. They do not replace the pen.
Dam (Mother)	Search a female on the selected farm. The linked dam must have been at least 15 months old at the animal’s birth.
Dam not in system? Skip for now	Leaves the dam unlinked. It does not create an external parent.
Sire (Father from herd)	Search an intact male on the selected farm. The linked sire must have been at least 12 months old at birth.
External sire name / breed	Optional text for a sire outside this herd; up to 100 characters each. It is not a linked Farmlync animal.
Notes	Optional factual supporting information. Review any dictated text before saving.

Do not select a similarly named animal merely to complete parentage. Correct parent links later from the animal’s Parentage action when reliable evidence becomes available.

7. Save and verify registration

• Register & Close saves one animal and closes the form.
• Register & Add Next saves and opens another registration with selected cohort values retained.
• Start blank clears carried-over breed, colour, horn status, sex, pen, groups, dam and sire.
• Cancel / Close leaves without creating the animal, but separately saved pedigree-prefix settings and consumed name-sequence values remain.

When adding the next animal, birth date resets to today and entry type resets to Born, or Purchased for a Steer. Re-enter these for every purchased or historical animal.

After success, find the animal and open its full record. Verify:

• tag, official identifier and RFID;
• breed, sex and birth date;
• farm-entry type, date and source;
• lifecycle, pregnancy and opening lactation where used;
• pen and group chips; and
• linked parents.

Duplicate identifiers, invalid registry format, missing Beef/Mixed birth weight, impossible stage/sex combinations, young parents, stale pen/group choices, capacity and concurrent changes can all stop the save. Correct the actual cause rather than creating a second identity.

8. Change the physical pen

Open the active animal and choose Assign Pen, or select several animals and use Assign Pen from the batch toolbar.

Control	What to enter
Destination pen *	A current pen on the selected farm.
Reason	Optional explanation, up to 200 characters.
Assign	Saves the physical move after current eligibility and version checks.
Cancel	Closes without moving the animal.

Verify the pen in the animal header and movement/activity history. A pen move does not change farm or group membership.

9. Add or remove working-group memberships

On the animal record, choose Add to group or Manage beside the group chips.

Control	What to enter
Memberships	Add or remove manually managed groups. One animal can belong to several groups, with at most 200 desired memberships in one request.
Auto chip	Membership controlled by a dynamic FQL rule. It cannot be manually added or removed here.
In group since	Applies to newly added groups. Defaults to today at the farm, can be backdated and cannot be future-dated. If earlier than farm entry, Farmlync anchors it to entry.
Save Changes	Atomically adds and ends the selected manual memberships. Disabled when nothing changed.

Removing a group ends the active interval; it does not erase earlier history. The effective membership date matters because overlap with a breeding-male group period can support natural-service attribution. Use actual dates and separate batches when different animals joined on different days.

For several animals, select 1–500 animals and use Add to Group. Select one manual destination group and one actual In group since date. The batch can partly succeed, so read the success/failure counts and inspect the roster before retrying. The group’s Capacity is planning information and does not currently block an over-capacity addition.

10. Transfer animals to another organisation farm

Use this only when source and destination are in the same Farmlync organisation.

1. Select the source farm.
2. Select 1–500 active animals and review their identities.
3. Choose Transfer to farm.
4. Complete the transfer form:

Control	What to enter
Destination farm *	A different farm in the same organisation. You need animal-management authority at source and destination.
Transfer date *	Actual non-future movement date, initially today in the source farm timezone.
Destination pen	Optional current pen from the destination farm.
Destination groups	Optional destination-farm groups. Selecting a different destination clears previous pen/group choices.
Reason	Optional movement explanation.
Transfer … animal(s)	Saves the reviewed batch once.

After a successful transfer:

• the same animal identities belong to the destination farm;
• source pen and group memberships are ended;
• selected destination pen and groups are applied;
• active lactations move so future milk can be recorded at the destination; and
• closed lactations and historical milk records remain in source-farm history.

Switch to the destination farm and verify every transferred animal, its location, groups and active lactation. Check required government-registry work separately; a Farmlync internal transfer is not proof that a registry accepted a movement.

11. Record a terminal departure

Use Record Exit when the animal leaves the organisation’s active herd. On one animal, open its actions menu. For a shared exit, select or add 1–500 animals; every animal in the batch shares the same date, reason and destination facts.

Field	What to enter
Exit date *	Actual farm-local date, not before the animal’s entry.
Exit reason *	Sold, Deceased, Culled, Transferred Out, Slaughtered, Lost, Gifted or Lease Ended.
Destination type/party/text	The buyer, market, abattoir, disposal collector, recipient or external farm appropriate to the reason. Use a saved party with the correct role when available.
Haulier	Optional saved Haulier for applicable movements.
Destination CPH	Optional destination holding/registry ID, at most 20 permitted letters, digits, spaces, slashes and hyphens; a registry may impose stricter rules.
Sale price per animal	Optional non-negative per-animal amount for Sold, Slaughtered or Culled. It is not a batch total.
Notes	Optional, up to 500 characters.

Farmlync checks meat withdrawal on the selected exit date for Sold, Slaughtered, Culled and Gifted. An active meat hold blocks that food-chain departure. Do not choose an untrue reason to bypass the safety check.

Saving removes successful animals from the active herd, clears current housing/groups, ends applicable lifecycle/lactation/production participation, closes related work, releases capacity and queues applicable registry work. A batch can partly succeed for animal-specific problems; review the result and use Retry failed only after correcting the failed records.

Verify the result under Livestock → Animals → Departures, where terminal exits and internal transfers are shown separately. Check date, reason, destination and recorded-by evidence.

12. Correct the right kind of mistake

Mistake	Correct action
Wrong tag, official ID or RFID	Use the animal’s Identity action so history is retained.
Wrong entry type, source or purchase price	Use Farm entry → Correct with a required audit reason. Entry date is not changed there.
Wrong pen	Assign the current correct pen.
Wrong manual group	End/add the appropriate membership with the real effective date.
Exit itself was recorded by mistake	Use Reverse exit, provide the required explanation and then reassign current pen/groups. It does not automatically cancel an accepted external registry movement.
Animal record should never have existed	Use Delete only for a duplicate or erroneous registration. This is broader than an exit and soft-deletes substantial operational history.

The animal page’s narrow Status correction does not collect complete departure evidence or run the full exit workflow. Use Record Exit for a real sale, death, cull, slaughter, loss, gift, external transfer or lease return.

Completion checklist

• The selected farm and animal identity are correct.
• No duplicate animal exists in this or another organisation farm.
• Entry facts and current lifecycle state describe reality.
• Official identifiers and parentage are supported by available evidence.
• Pen represents physical location; groups represent working cohorts.
• Internal transfers use the same animal record at the destination.
• Terminal departures appear in Departures with the correct evidence.
• Required government-registry work has been checked separately.
• The animal header and Worklist/activity timeline agree with the physical animal.

For the complete page references, see Register an animal, Animal record and identity, Groups, Internal farm transfer and Departures.