Adding Animals
Add a new animal
- Go to Animals in the sidebar.
- Click New Animal.
- Fill in the details:
- Name (required) — the animal's registered or full name
- Call Name (optional) — a shorter display name used throughout the app
- Species and Breed
- Sex and Date of birth
- Custom fields such as microchip, colour code and registration numbers (see below)
- Sire and Dam: link to other animals in your account for pedigree tracking
- If you have more than one breeding program, choose its Program. Only programs for the animal's species are listed, and the form starts on the one you last added an animal to; pick No program to keep it out of all of them. If your programs are for different species and you haven't set a species, the form asks you to choose.
- Upload a photo (optional).
- Click Save.
Animals join your program automatically
A new animal you own goes straight into your breeding program, so it shows on the program's Animals tab and in its matings and litters:
- One program: every animal you add is put in it. You don't need to do anything.
- Several programs: the animal goes into the program you choose on the form. A cat never goes into a dog program (or the other way round): an animal can only join a program for its species.
- No program yet: the animal waits in your Animals list. When you create a program, open it and click Add my animals to this program: every animal that isn't in a program yet is listed and ticked, so one Save adds them all. Companions are listed too, but left unticked.
Animals added through Smart Import or an AI assistant follow the same rule. An animal that isn't in any program shows Not in a program under its name, with an Add to program link, and your Dashboard tells you how many are waiting. Companions and pets can live outside a program: an animal whose Breeding role is Companion isn't added automatically, and it never shows the nudge.
Animal status
Each animal has a status:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | Currently in your breeding program |
| Retired | Bred for you in the past, no longer breeds, still in your care |
| Deceased | Passed away. Add the Date of death in the form; it shows on the animal's profile |
| Litter | Born in a litter, not yet independent |
Animals added through the litter form are automatically assigned Litter status. Update the status to Active when the animal moves to your main breeding stock.
Status describes the animal's life, not whether it breeds. If an animal stays with you but stops breeding (neutered, kept as a pet, shown only), keep it Active, set its Breeding role to Companion, and remove it from the breeding program on the program's Animals tab. Use Retired only for an animal that has bred for you. See How animal status works for breeding roles, the Altered setting and tags.
Owned vs. external animals
- Owned animals appear in your main Animals list and are added to your breeding program.
- External animals are pedigree-only records for ancestors you don't own. They don't appear in your main list but show up in pedigree visualizations.
Custom fields
You can add custom key-value fields to any animal (for example, Microchip: 123456789). Open the animal's profile, go to the Info tab, find the Custom Fields section within Animal Details, and click Add Field.
Programs can also define standard custom field names that appear on every animal in the program. These are managed from the program's Advanced tab.
Where identity data lives
Identity details are custom fields, so everything about an animal is visible in one place on its Info tab, under Animal Details:
| Detail | Suggested field name |
|---|---|
| Colour code | EMS Color (cats) or Color |
| Microchip | Microchip |
| Registration numbers | One per registry, e.g. TICA Reg #, CFA Reg # |
| Titles and awards | Titles |
| Blood type | Blood Type |
New cat programs start with EMS Color and Blood Type in their default field set; new dog programs start with Blood Type. Add the others your program uses on the program's Advanced tab so every animal in the program shows them.
BreederPro reads two of these fields directly: Blood Type powers the blood-type (neonatal isoerythrolysis) warning when an AI assistant analyses a planned mating, and EMS Color is the colour code. Keep those exact names.
If you use an AI assistant through the BreederPro connector, it writes these details into the same custom fields: it uses your program's field names when they match (it understands common variations like "Chip #" for Microchip) and offers to add a new field to the program when it applies to all your animals. CSV imports work the same way: Microchip, Titles, Color and Registration columns become custom fields, and a Date of death column fills the date of death.