Articles on: Breeding & Genetics

The breeding dashboard

Open Dashboard and choose Breeding under Animals & Groups. The page lists every pregnancy you track across your herd, soonest due first, with the next step for each one.

A tracked pregnancy starts when you record a breeding with tracking turned on. Creatures then works out the due date and fills this page for you.

Read the summary

The Breeding command center opens with five numbers.

Breeding command center with Record breeding, Add calving history, Reports and Field sheets, above the Expecting, Due soon, Overdue, Photos this week and To attach counts

Expecting: mothers with a tracked pregnancy. A cow with two open breedings counts once.
Due soon: due in the next 30 days.
Overdue: her due date or window has passed and no birth is recorded.
Photos this week: progress photos dated in the last 7 days.
To attach: progress photos that are not linked to a pregnancy yet.

Tap a number to jump to those rows. Expecting opens your Today calendar at the month of the next due date.

The buttons above the numbers start the bigger jobs:

Record breeding records one mating or several at once. See Record breedings for several animals at once.
Add birth history adds births from past seasons. It reads Add calving history (or kidding, lambing and so on) when your animals are all one species. See Add past births to your herd's history.
Reports opens your herd reports with the birth schedule already chosen. See Download a birth schedule for your herd.
Field sheets makes a weighing, treatment or herd list sheet to print for the barn. See Download herd reports.

Work one row

Each row is one pregnancy. It shows the mother, her due date or window, and what that date is based on. A bar shows how far along she is, such as day 214 of about 280.

Elspeth's overdue row with her due window, the Overdue label, Sire Dougal of Cedar Hollow, no progress photos and Record calving

Tap the due date to fix it. It opens Change dates or due date.
Due soon or Overdue appears beside the date when it applies.
Sire names the father, even one you only typed by name. From stored material means she was bred with your stored straws. With no father recorded, you see Add sire. If up to 3 of your bulls could be the father, Sire? lists them: tap one to link him, or choose Other sire.
The photo count shows her progress photos. Needs update appears when she is due within 45 days and has no progress photo from the last 14 days.
For a goat or a donkey, Colors to expect shows possible kid or foal colors.

The blue button is the likely next step:

Record calving (or the birth word for her species) when she is due today or overdue.
Add progress photo when she needs an update.
View breeding at other times. It opens her Breeding tab.

Kirsty's row on a phone with her due date, day count, sire, last progress photo and View breeding

The three dots open More actions: Add progress photo, View breeding, Record calving and Change dates or due date. Compare appears once she has an earlier finished pregnancy to compare with. She came back into heat, Not pregnant and Lost the pregnancy end the breeding, and Recorded by mistake removes one you saved in error. See When a breeding doesn't take.

More actions open on Elspeth's row with Add progress photo, View breeding, Record calving, the three end reasons, Recorded by mistake and Change dates or due date

Needs a look, open cows and missing births

Needs a look catches three problems. From a mother's due date, it asks the same question as her reminder, such as Calves here yet?, with Yes, add them, plus Not yet and Not pregnant for owners and co-owners. Once her birth window has passed, it asks whether she gave birth, with Record calving or Not pregnant. When a mother has two open breedings, it offers to keep the later one, or Choose to decide. When her last pregnancy check found her open, it offers End breeding, and End and remind me to rebreed when Creatures knows her next heat.

You may also see a note such as "2 calvings are missing from your cows' history." Creatures found these from the birthdays of animals you own. Choose Review and add, or Not now to hide it.

When two or more cows old enough to breed have no open breeding, Open cows lists them by name, such as Open cows · 5. Spayed animals stay off the list. Tap a name to record her breeding, or choose Record breeding beside the heading to record them together.

Further down the page

Photos to attach lists progress photos without a pregnancy. Choose pregnancy opens her Breeding tab so you can link the right one.
Projected care reminders shows pregnancy checks and similar care due in the next 30 days. The reminders live in Care, so Open Care takes you there. See Breeding reminders.
Recent outcomes lists pregnancies that ended lately, with a link to each birth.
Stored material outcomes counts the young born from your stored straws, embryos or eggs.
Egg keepers also see Egg clutches at the top. See Set a clutch of eggs.

When the page is empty

With no animals yet, you see Add your first animal and an Add animal button.

Once you have animals but track no pregnancy, you see No breedings tracked yet. Record breeding opens the breeding panel with tracking already on. With no eligible female yet, the button reads Record a breeding and opens the regular record form. Herds of egg layers see Add breeding record instead.

No breedings tracked yet with the Record breeding button

Updated on: 06/11/2026

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