Recording mating events and details is a key part of being a responsible breeder. With Breedera, you can record all the essential details of every mating and store them in one easy to access place.
Note: Everything we discuss in the following guide can be done on Breedera’s Free plan. You don’t need any active subscription to use the Heat Cycle or Matings features on Breedera!
To get started recording a mating. Go to the Dogs list page, and hit the (+) PLUS button. From here, you’ll be able to select Mating from the list.
When adding a mating, you can record the date and time, select a partner (the partner dog must be added to Breedera first) and add details of the type of mating event, tie duration and any notes.
Hit Save. This will save that mating event to both the female and the male dog’s records.
To view any matings recorded against any dog, go to the dogs list and find the dog you wish to view. Tap to open their profile, then go to Records > Breeding > Matings. Here you’ll see a list of all that dog’s mating events, in date order. If you tap on any previous mating, it will open that event to show you the full details.
Adding matings to Heat Cycles
If the date of any mating falls inside the Start and End date of any Heat Cycle, Breedera will automatically save the Mating inside that Heat for future reference. That way, you’ll always know which matings occurred during which heat cycle. Furthermore, if there’s at least one mating recorded inside any heat cycle, we’ll use that information to start predicting the future whelp date.
Predicting whelping dates
Once a mating has been added, you can begin to predict the whelping date of the future litter, assuming the mating is successful. To do this, go to the female’s Records page, then to Breeding > Heat cycles. Find the heat cycle that contains the mating (usually the current heat cycle, found at the top of the page). You’ll see a predicted whelp date for that heat cycle.
How does Breedera estimate whelping dates?
Breedera uses a combination of predicted and actual ovulation dates, as well as the mating dates.
Our estimation firstly uses all available ovulation data. So if you’ve added at least two past heat cycles in which her ovulation date was known, we’ll predict the ovulation date of all future heat cycles. We’ll then add 63 days (official dog gestation time) to that ovulation date estimate in order to predict a whelp date. If you have an actual known ovulation date for any heat, we’ll always use the actual ovulation date to predict the whelp date, over-riding the estimated one.
If you don’t know the exact ovulation date, and have not added 2 or more previous ovulation dates to any female, we’ll use the first mating date inside that heat instead. So if the mating happened on 1st January, we’ll predict a whelp date of March 5th (63 days later).
Recording Mating events with Breedera is easy and stress free. But we’re always making improvements and listening to our breeder community to improve our service. If you want any help, or wish to offer feedback, please contact us, or join our Breeder Community.
