Complete lifecycle work

What this workflow achieves

Lifecycle records explain a major change in an animal’s productive life and when it happened. They drive current stage, due work, breeding, milk, alerts and reports. Use the event-specific form whenever one exists; a generic stage label cannot replace the evidence and downstream changes of calving, weaning, dry-off or exit.

1. Choose the action that describes the event

What actually happened	Action to use	Main effects
A dam gave birth	Record Calving	Saves the birth, registers live calves, links parentage, opens the dam’s next lactation and resets pregnancy.
A calf stopped milk feeding	Record Weaning or Batch Weaning	Saves the weaning event, closes Calf stage, starts the correct next stage and can record weight/pen for a single calf.
A milking animal stopped the lactation	Record Dry-Off or Batch Dry-Off	Closes the verified active lactation, changes the animal to Dry and updates planning.
A production-stage change has no dedicated event	Change Lifecycle Stage	Ends one stage and opens another with a date, reason and note.
An animal left the organisation’s active herd	Record Exit or Batch Exit / Death	Records the departure evidence and terminal state.
An animal moved to another farm in the same organisation	Transfer to farm	Moves the existing identity; it is not an exit or stage change.

A cull decision or list entry is not a completed departure. A due schedule row is not evidence that an event occurred.

2. Find and prioritise lifecycle work

Open Farm Portal → Livestock → Lifecycle. The dashboard combines current composition, expected transitions, historical performance and recorded activity.

Headline and page controls

Control	How to use it
Attention now	Opens canonical Lifecycle work due today or overdue.
Calving · next 30d	Expected calvings from tomorrow through day 30.
Weaning · next 30d	Calves reaching the system’s review age in that window.
Dry-off · next 30d	Dairy-farm pregnancy-based forecast. Non-dairy farms show Active herd instead.
View Work	Opens the full Work queue. Use it when the dashboard schedule is capped or a task comes from a production rule.
Start Work	Opens lifecycle work in Execution Mode.
History CSV	Exports recorded lifecycle events, not forecast rows. A synchronous export over 10,000 matching records is refused.
Record	Opens Record Calving, Batch Weaning, Batch Dry-Off or Batch Exit / Death.

A dash with status unavailable means a source failed; zero means it loaded and found none. Select Retry before making a whole-herd decision when the page reports partial data.

Filter the transition schedule

Choose a time window:

• Overdue — expected before farm today;
• Today — expected today at the farm;
• Next 7d, Next 30d or Next 90d — tomorrow through that future boundary.

Then choose All schedule, Calving, Weaning, Dry-off or Data review. A Data review row means planning evidence is incomplete; open the animal and correct the true record rather than inventing a lifecycle event.

The dashboard loads up to 500 schedule candidates. Exact headline counts can exceed the loaded list. Select all covers the currently filtered loaded set across its local pages, not candidates omitted by that cap. Narrow the filters or use View Work when the cap warning appears.

3. Record a calving

Use Record Calving from the dam, Lifecycle, Calendar or due work. Confirm the displayed dam. She must be an active female on the selected farm, enrolled in the Breeding Program, and you must have animal-management authority.

Birth and breeding-service controls

Control	What to enter
Calving Date *	Actual farm-local birth date. The current form can accept up to seven future days, but saving changes current state immediately; do not use it to schedule a future calving.
Eligible breeding service	Confirm the service that produced the calving. The newest eligible service is selected by default when several exist.

An interval under 260 or over 295 days from the selected service produces an unusual-gestation warning. Recheck the dates and service. The warning does not diagnose a problem or block an otherwise valid save.

Add calves

Choose Add Calf and Add Another for up to four calves.

Field	Valid value and effect
Tag Number	Required for each live calf, up to 50 characters, unique within the form and farm. A stillborn calf creates no Animal row and needs no tag.
Sex	Female or Male. Verify each row; a new row defaults to Female.
Birth Weight (kg)	Optional 15–65 kg.
Breed	Optional farm breed; can default from the selected sire and may be deliberately overridden.
National ID	Shown when registry identity is configured and required for a live calf when farm policy mandates it.
Name	Optional, effective server/storage maximum 100 characters.
Colour / Serial Number	Optional appearance and official/registry serial information.
Sire ID	Available when no eligible breeding service supplied the sire.
Calf outcome	Alive creates an animal; Stillborn records the birth count without an Animal record.
Keep for breeding	For a live calf, review the default and turn it off when not intended for breeding.

Do not change the outcome merely to bypass an identity requirement.

Clinical details

Field	Valid value
Difficulty Score	Not scored, 1 Unassisted, 2 Easy Pull, 3 Hard Pull, 4 Mechanical Assist or 5 Cesarean.
Assistance Required	None, Farmer, Vet, Mechanical Aid or Other.
Done By	Optional person, up to 100 characters; defaults to the signed-in user.
Afterbirth status	Not checked, Delivered or Not delivered. Not delivered can create retained-placenta follow-up.
Notes	Optional, up to 1,000 characters.

Review the summary and select Record Calving once. The save records the calving, creates live calves, links parents, admits their animal capacity, starts the next lactation, resets the dam to Open, updates the breeding service as appropriate and creates configured registry delivery work as one operation.

The result reports live/stillborn counts, new lactation number, service warnings, registry state and links to the dam/calves. A score of 4 or 5, or Vet assistance, offers a prefilled health check; the current Difficult calving alert itself is rule-driven from score 4 or 5.

4. Record one weaning

Open Weaning for the calf. The animal must be in Calf stage and at least 56 farm-local days old on the event date.

Control	What to enter
Weaning Date *	Actual date, default farm today. The form accepts up to 30 future days but changes stage immediately, so use only the completed-event date.
Weaning weight (kg)	Optional measured 0.1–9,999.9 kg. Leave blank when not weighed; do not use zero as “unknown”.
Move to pen	Optional physical destination pen. Blank leaves the current pen unchanged.
Notes	Optional, up to 1,000 characters.
Record Weaning	Saves event, stage, optional weight and optional pen move.

Farmlync chooses the resulting stage: Dairy/Mixed female → Heifer, Dairy/Mixed male → Bull, and Beef → Weaner. Verify the new stage, timeline, weight and pen after saving.

5. Record batch weaning

Use a batch when 1–500 calves share one actual date and notes. A selection supplied by Work/Execution Mode can be locked; a general selection can allow add/remove.

Control	What to check
Weaning Date	One required date applied to every submitted animal.
Notes	Optional shared text, up to 1,000 characters.
Animal rows	Every remaining row is submitted; this is not a checkbox table.
Weight (kg)	Optional individual weight for each calf. Check it is finite, positive and within 0.1–9,999.9 kg.
Wean N Animals	Runs item-level eligibility checks and records successful rows.

Batch Weaning has no pen control. Move housing separately or use single-animal Weaning. Read the per-animal result; Retry failed returns only failed animals. Successful animals must not be submitted again.

6. Record one dry-off

The animal must have a verified active lactation, be in the Breeding Program and be eligible for lifecycle management.

Control or status	Meaning
Lactation verified	Shows the exact active lactation and days in milk that will be closed. Wait for this before saving.
Dry-Off Date *	Actual farm-local date. The form accepts up to 30 future days but applies Dry state immediately; do not enter a planning date.
Expected Calving Date	Normally computed from confirmed pregnancy evidence, otherwise from the farm’s configured dry period.
Edit / Use farm setting	Deliberately override the expected calving date, which must be later than dry-off, or return to the calculated value.
Notes	Optional, up to 1,000 characters.
Record Dry-Off	Closes the verified lactation and records the dry-off transition.

If verification fails, use Retry verification. No active lactation means this form cannot proceed. If a request outcome is uncertain, use Retry unchanged request only when the same facts remain intended, or refresh verification before changing the draft. A stale form cannot close a newer lactation.

After success, verify Dry stage, lactation end and expected calving evidence. Matching Dry-off and Lactation-too-long work should clear.

7. Record batch dry-off

Use a batch for up to 500 cows sharing date and notes. The form verifies each active lactation and marks it Ready or Not included.

Control	What it does
Dry-Off Date	One actual date, applied to every submitted Ready animal.
Notes	Optional shared text.
Checking / Ready / Not included	Shows whether the exact current lactation is available. Not included animals are not sent.
Retry verification	Rechecks lactations after a lookup failure.
Dry Off N Animals	Sends only Ready animals; N can be smaller than the original selection.

Batch Dry-Off has no per-animal expected-calving override. Its current calculation uses dry-off date plus the configured dry period, whereas the single form can preserve confirmed-pregnancy evidence. Use the single form for an animal whose confirmed expected date must be retained or reviewed. Read every result and retry only failed animals after correcting the cause.

8. Change a lifecycle stage when no dedicated event applies

Open Change Lifecycle Stage on the active animal. Use it for a genuine production-classification change such as Weaner → Stocker or Stocker → Finisher.

Control	What to enter
Current stage	Read-only. If missing or unsupported, the browser refuses to offer an unsafe change.
New Stage *	One server-provided next stage allowed for this herd type and current stage. Terminal stages are excluded.
Effective Date *	Actual farm-local date. The form accepts up to 30 future days but changes current state immediately; use a schedule for planned work.
Reason	Optional, up to 200 characters.
Notes	Optional, up to 1,000 characters.
Change Stage	Ends the current stage, opens the next and adds a timeline event.

Do not use the generic action for Calf → post-weaning, Heifer/Dry → Lactating or Lactating → Dry. Those options can currently appear, but they do not create the weaning, calving, calf, lactation or dry-off records owned by the dedicated workflows.

9. Complete exits and internal moves correctly

• Use Record Exit for Sold, Deceased, Culled, Slaughtered, Lost, Gifted, Transferred Out or Lease Ended. Record destination and food-chain evidence where applicable.
• Use Transfer to farm when the animal remains inside this Farmlync organisation.
• Do not use Delete, a terminal stage label or a cull decision as a substitute for the movement.

The full exit, withdrawal and verification rules are in Register, house, group and move an animal.

10. Verify every saved event

After a single or batch operation:

1. Read the success and failure result before closing it.
2. Open the animal’s Lifecycle section and confirm event type and farm-local date.
3. Confirm the current stage.
4. For calving, inspect the new calves, dam lactation, parentage and registry state.
5. For weaning, inspect optional weight and pen.
6. For dry-off, inspect the closed lactation and expected calving date.
7. Return to Lifecycle or Work and refresh. Completed work should clear or move to the next valid task.
8. For a batch, investigate omitted and failed animals separately; selected does not mean recorded.

Use Farm lifecycle activity for recorded history and its Calving, DryOff, Weaning, StageChange and Exit filters. Use the schedule for expected work. Historical performance cards are derived from completed records, not from forecasts.

For an incorrect event, use its supported correction or reversal path. Do not add a second false event to conceal the first.

Completion checklist

• The selected action describes what physically happened.
• The animal identity and farm were checked before saving.
• The event date is the actual completed farm-local date.
• Shared batch facts genuinely apply to every selected animal.
• Per-animal successes, failures and omissions were reviewed.
• Current stage and owning event history agree.
• Related calf, lactation, weight, housing and registry records were checked.
• Due work refreshed to the correct next state.

For page-level references, see Lifecycle dashboard, Record a calving, Weaning, Dry-off and Departures.