Ear Tags, Tattooing, or Cage Cards? Or All?

[wallride]

How do you keep track of your breeding herd, and why?

Do you use Cage Cards only?
Do you use Ear Tags only?
Do you Tattoo only?
Or do you do a combonation?

I understand that most breeders do cage cards, but it is common as well to tag the ear.. I have read in various places of tattooing the ear, but haven't heard of many who do it.

What do you do to keep track of your animals (besides pedigrees and databases), what do you like about it, or, what do you dislike about it?

[Kansas City Chinchillas]

Ear tags and cage cards here.

[Midwest Exotics]

I have cage cards on my cages. No one is ID tagged though, i personally dont like the idea of tagging or tattooing. I also am not mainstream enough to need those types of IDs i guess. Maybe if i had LOTS more it would be more heavily needed, but now, no. I dont have problems with people who do have tagged or tattooed chinchillas though. -- hehe not that i even know any. =]=]=]=]

I Have their name, color, & some info listed on the fronts of the cages. I do this mainly for the sake of other people & as a reminder for how many should be in what cages & then the info easily provided about every chinchilla. It was easy for my mother to watch our chinchillas while we were on vacation. I had the number for each cage & the colors right there so she knew that if there was someone missing, there was obviously a problem. I dont really do this for my benifit as i know who they all are, but i think its a good idea in the event you had to rush away somewhere for an emergency. This way its pretty much all there without having to give notes. (I have a list for ALL my animals care in the event that i ever need to leave quickly or if something were to happen to me.) That might be strange, but i feel its a good idea. My mom, chris, & my sister in law all know where to find it. --Tucked under all my pedigree, weight, & other paper work. =]

[Stark Chinchillas]

Most animals are eartagged. Cage cards/pen cards on the cages. Herd book kept for each breeder as well with more detailed lineage, I use the pedigree charts in gold and white offered for sale by the Empress office for that and they're kept in a binder, which is my herd book. I also have a binder for births with a spreadsheet to chart as each kit is born, animal number, tag number (if different than animal number), DOB, sex, color, weight, dam and sire. I also make notes to the side if the kit died soon after birth, and also to the side if it's sold and to whom. When I'm ready to make a cage card/pen card for the kit after it's weaned, I refer back to that book to get the kit's info, then to the herd book to record the info from the dam and sire's pedigree chart onto the kit's cage card. If the kit will be staying here to go into breeding, a pedigree chart is made for it and put into the herd book once it has it's place in a breeding line.

[Becky]

Cage cards for me, but soon to be eartagged as well.

The problem with only cage cards is that if more than one animal is out, or if a female slips a collar, gets into the run, and you end up with 2 females in the same cage, you can't always tell them apart. I have over 50 standard females and they are darn hard to identify!

Becky

[haleybobl]

I have some that came with ear tags. However most of mine are just known by name here. I only have about 30 or so chins at any given time, so I don't have any problems telling them apart.

[Riven]

Tagged and cards. Personally just tags are kind of... stupid. I mean if you'd have to pull the animal to make sure of who it was. I like it for a back-up type of id, and for sales purposes, that way people can track the animal back to me.

Tattooing can be dangerous if done improperly. There are nerves that run through the ear that lead to the facial nerves, hitting on can be disasterous (sp?) and lead to partial paralisys of the face. That's why most people don't do it.

[Sketch]

I like the tagged and carded method - Disk saved data recording, etc.

[JAGS]

All chins get cage cards and are recorded with all pertinent info on the computer in a program called chinrec. 11,000 animals recorded to date. All breeding animals (approximately 1000 males and females) and show animals are ear tagged for better identification. We have had a couple of instances where an animal has gotten hold of its cage card and eaten it. Also the cleaning help have been know to knock cage cards off in cleaning and don't bother to pick them back up, just sweep them up and out with the rest of the waste never to be seen again.

[Vyxxin]

We tag...no cage cards, but we do have a herd book and extensive pedigrees. What I don't like about tags would have to be how easily removed they are. When I tag an animal (breeding or show animals only, like JAGS) it's for a good reason...so it can be traced...because it is WORTH tracing. I just wish there were something more...permanent for lack of a better word