Viewing Ancestors

The Ancestors section of the Pedigree tab shows an animal’s family tree going back up to three generations — its sire and dam, their sires and dams (grandparents), and one more generation above that (great-grandparents).

How the Tree Is Built

Cattle360 starts at the animal you’re viewing and walks up the Sire and Dam links recorded on each record. Every parent it finds is placed in the tree, then its parents are looked up, and so on for up to three generations. Each animal appears as a card you can click to open its record.

Reading the Layout

• The animal you’re viewing sits at the left of the tree, with ancestors branching to the right.
• Each level to the right is one generation further back.
• Where a parent isn’t recorded, the tree shows a Sire unknown or Dam unknown placeholder so you can see exactly where lineage is missing.

When There Are No Ancestors

If neither a sire nor a dam is linked to the animal, the section shows “No sire or dam is linked to this animal yet.” Assign lineage on the animal’s record to populate the tree — see Assigning Sire and Dam.

Filling Gaps in the Tree

• Add the missing parent as an animal record. A sire or dam must exist as an animal in Cattle360 before it can be linked and appear in the tree.
• Use Reference animals for outside genetics. AI sires and leased bulls that never physically joined your herd can be created as Reference animals so they show up as ancestors.
• Link grandparents on the parents’ records. The tree only goes as deep as your data. To see grandparents and great-grandparents, the sire and dam records need their own sire and dam links.

Tips

• Build lineage from the top down. Recording sire and dam on your foundation cows and herd bulls first means every calf you add inherits a deeper tree automatically.
• Ancestry powers the insight cards. The inbreeding coefficient and breed composition are both calculated from this ancestor tree, so a more complete tree gives you better insights.