Pair your birds

Three modes, three levels of certainty

The classic pair brings together one identified male and one identified female. Every young bird has two known parents, and the ancestry can be rebuilt without guesswork.

The polygamous group puts one male with several females. Fatherhood stays certain, motherhood is determined nest by nest.

The complex group gathers several males and several females. The young that come out of it are perfectly valid birds, but their pedigree stops there, and the tree will show “not traceable” rather than a probable parent.

The mode is chosen at the top of the form, because it governs how the parents are then selected.

Filling in the record

After the mode come the breeding birds, the formation date and the status. A parent can be declared unknown, provided at least one of the two is given.

The name is technically optional: left empty, it composes itself from the breeding birds, for instance “R001/25 & F003/25”, or “Group 2♂/3♀” for a complex group. Take the time to choose it anyway. It is what you will search a pair by, and it is what sorts the list: a name that means something to you, or that follows your own filing system, beats a string of rings to decipher.

Two optional fields earn their keep day to day. The breeding pen records the physical cage, “Cage A1”, “Box 12”, which links the screen to the aisle. The label colour stands out on the pair’s card and on the aviary board; everyone gives it the meaning they want, often a season or a mating programme.

Creating the birds without leaving the form

This guide presents the steps in the order that reads best, birds first, pairing second. It is not the only one, and often not yours: you rarely start from a complete flock on screen, you start from the pair in front of you.

So type the breeding bird’s ring number into the search field. If no bird carries that ring, a “Create a new bird” entry appears under the no-result message. It opens the bird form with the ring you typed, the sex the slot expects, and the species and breed carried over from the other breeding bird if one is already chosen. On saving, the bird drops into its slot by itself and the pair name recomposes.

On mobile, the same entry opens the creation page then returns to the pair form, your entry preserved.

The path also exists the other way round: a bird’s form can declare its parent pair, described in the “Record your first birds” step.

The foster pair

A foster pair broods and raises eggs laid by another pair. The option is switched on in the form, for classic pairs only. When creating a clutch under natural incubation, you then choose to entrust it to that pair.

The distinction is held from end to end: the eggs stay attached to their biological parents, the actual rearing is recorded separately. The pedigree follows the genes, not the nest.

Separate rather than delete

At the end of the season, move the pair to the “Separated” status. It leaves the active counts and the breeding lists while keeping its history and its clutches.

Deleting, on the other hand, erases the link between the breeding birds. The birds, the clutches and the health records survive, but the pairing disappears, and with it part of what explains your aviary. “Separated” is almost always the right move.

Once the pair is formed, its record shows its offspring as the hatches come, and the Genealogy page unfolds the full tree. It is also from this record that clutches are declared, without going through the Laying page: see the next step.