What are Livestock Classes?

Livestock classes are a way to logically group animals based (generally) on their age and sex. The class can then be used for filtering and reporting purposes.

You can setup your livestock classes as you wish, however we recommend basing them on animal age and sex eg CALF, STEER, HEIFER, BULL, COW, etc.

Animals will move through different classes in it's lifetime and their class movements will be recorded within Stockbook®.

How to setup you classes.

To setup your livestock classes in Stockbook®, select Setup | Classes from the main menu. The list of currently setup classes will then be displayed.

To add a new class, select the Add button. This will display the Add Class screen, where you can enter the class details.

A class has a Code and a Description. It also can optionally have a Reporting Group. The reporting group allows for a further level of grouping within reports (where available). The reporting group is a text field and any classes that have the exact same reporting group value will appear grouped. For example if you had a class for CALF-MALE and CALF-FEMALE you may wish to group them together for reporting purposes, so you could give them both the reporting group value of "CALVES".

If for some reason you do not wish to see a class in the normal class lists (eg. it is a class that is no longer used) tick on the Inactive checkbox.

Once you have finished entering the class details, click on the OK button.

Filtering animals by their class.

You can filter animals based on the class they are currently in by going to the Status tab on the filter screen. Here you will see a list of all of the active classes you have defined and you can select which ones you wish to filter on. If you want to select more than 1 class, hold down the SHIFT key while selecting the classes you want.

You can also invert the filter by selecting the Invert checkbox in the bottom right of the Livestock Class filter box. For example if you want to filter on all animals EXCEPT bulls you could select the BULL class and then tick on the filter invert.

Moving animals between classes.

To move animals into a new livestock class, select the animals you wish to move in the animal list. Select the Events button and then select Movement: Livestock Class Transfers from the list of possible events. Then select the OK button.

The Transfer to a Class screen will then be displayed. Select the date the transfer occurred and the class they were moved to. Select the OK button once you are done.

If you want to see the livestock class transfers of a particular animal select the animal and click on the Class tab at the bottom of the animal list or the animal edit screen.