Our annual flock inspection went well. We discussed a bunch of potential user interface and use case options with our veterinarian. I still did all the queries to produce the reports by hand, but I also developed some new query code that provides more information in a better format.

We used LambTracker® during shearing to print labels for wool samples and fleeces that I saved for sale. We found a few bugs in the system and worked on them. Now we’re trying to clean up stuff for the Federal Scrapie Flock Inspection.

All lambing is done now. I’ve got a lot of work to do to finish my Master’s Degree, so LambTracker® is going to take a back seat until early 2016.

We are nearing the end of lambing season. We only have six ewes yet to lamb, and this year, we uncovered a few more lambing bugs. Most have been fairly minor.

I’m making some changes to the database structure based on feedback from other rare breed breeders. I’ve moved the registration info out to a separate set of tables to account for sheep that may be part of more than two registries.

After a bit of a hiatus, I am back at updating LambTracker®. We have been doing our normal tasks, like moving breeding rams, by doing required changes to the database by hand.

I put the Scrivener novel I’m using to document LambTracker® up on GitHub as a separate repository. It seems to be working well for tracking the changes I make.

I’m doing a lot of code clean-up and fixing in the GitHub repository. I am also adding the manual to GitHub, although I am writing it in Scrivener. Up next is attempting to create a repository for my SQLite queries.

We just finished our sheep experiment week. We are working with the USDA on developing non-surgical AI procedures for sheep. Last year, we successfully used LambTracker to collect a ton of data during the week on insemination depths, estrus characteristics, etc.