The season plan answers the question a month view never can: was our lambing period compact, and when does the sire have to go in next time? It shows a whole year per species as a band and, on request, calculates backwards from the first birth you want.
Opening the page
Breeding → Season plan. The arrows at the top right move through the years.
What is due this week is not shown here but in the farm calendar in the main navigation. That one covers every module: withdrawal periods, note follow-ups, ration changeovers and the breeding dates.
The year band
The band lays these on top of each other, per species:
- Mating period: when the sire was with the herd, with the number of dams
- Birth window: when births are expected from it
- Actual births: as ticks underneath
- Alpine grazing: the season that explains why no checks fall due during that time
The interesting observation is the comparison: if the birth ticks sit close together, the mating time was well managed. If they stretch over months, a shorter mating period pays off next year.
A mating group appears as one bar with the number of dams, not as fifty bars stacked up.
If no mating periods are recorded yet, Herdy says so and points to the mating group: the band fills up as soon as one exists.
The backward planner
The most useful tool on the page sits above the year band. The usual question is not "when will she calve" but the other way round:
Lambing should start on 15 March. When does the ram have to go in?
You enter:
- Species
- First birth from: the target date
- Mating period (days): three cycles are proposed
- Dams: optional, for the sire capacity warning
Herdy calculates backwards and gives you the in and out dates for the sire plus the resulting birth window.
The warnings
- Outside the breeding season: for sheep and goats the natural breeding season runs from September to December. A mating period outside it simply means, for seasonal breeds, that the group stays empty.
- Partly outside the breeding season: the start is right, the end sticks out.
- Too many dams for one sire: see Recording a mating group.
If you keep an aseasonal breed such as the Weisses Alpenschaf, Juraschaf or Engadinerschaf, you can switch the season window off using the gear icon on the heats page. See Heat monitoring.
Taking it straight over
If the result fits, Create as mating group carries you straight on, with the period already filled in.
Printing
The page is prepared for printing: your browser's print function gives you the calving or lambing plan in landscape, without menus and without the planner. The sheet fits on the barn wall.