Cattery Visitor Log: 6 Fields, 1 Row, 12 Months

A visitor log is 6 fields and 1 line per visit, kept for 12 months. That is the whole system: no app, no scanner, a clipboard by the door and a spreadsheet you update the same evening. It answers 3 questions fast — who was in the cattery on a given day, which cats they touched, and whether they were healthy 72 hours before and after. If a ringworm case or a coughing kitten shows up, those 3 answers are the difference between 1 room and the whole household.

Why 12 months, and why 1 line

Twelve months covers the incubation and treatment window of the problems a cattery actually sees: ringworm can take 6-8 weeks to clear and recur, and a vaccine or health question usually surfaces 3-9 months after the visit, when an owner calls about a kitten. One line per visit keeps the file auditable: 40 visits a month becomes 480 lines a year, about 12 pages, which anyone can scan in 2 minutes. A log with paragraphs per visit gets abandoned by week 3.

The 6 fields

1. Date and times. Date plus arrival and departure in 24-hour time. A 90-minute visit is a different risk from a 6-hour one, and time lets you match a visitor to the cats that were out of their rooms.

2. Visitor identity. Full name, 1 phone number, and relationship (buyer, vet, courier, friend). One contact field is enough to trace back; 2 are better when a phone changes.

3. Purpose and area. Why they came and which rooms or runs they entered, using your room codes. This is the field people skip and later need most.

4. Cats contacted. Cat ID or litter group, in your existing numbering. Write the group, not 9 individual names, when a whole litter was handled.

5. Hygiene step. A yes/no for hand wash and shoe change or shoe covers, plus whether a clean outer layer was worn. Yes/no takes 2 seconds and is the field that proves a routine exists.

6. Symptoms and notes. Any cough, sneeze, eye discharge, diarrhea or skin lesion the visitor reports for the past 72 hours, and anything you observed. Free text, 1 line, 15 words maximum.

The log sheet

#	Field	Format	Example	Required	Retain
1	Date and times	YYYY-MM-DD, 24h	2026-10-31 14:05-15:40	Yes	12 mo
2	Visitor identity	Name, phone, role	L. Chen, 1 phone, buyer	Yes	12 mo
3	Purpose and area	Code + room list	Viewing, R2 and R3	Yes	12 mo
4	Cats contacted	Cat or litter ID	Litter B26-04	Yes	12 mo
5	Hygiene step	Y / N x 3 items	Wash Y, shoes Y, coat N	Yes	12 mo
6	Symptoms, notes	Free text, 15 words	No symptoms reported	If any	12 mo

Six columns, one row per visit, and 12 months in the last column so nobody has to remember the rule. Print 50 rows per page, number the pages, and keep the current sheet on a clipboard within 2 m of the door: a log kept in an office drawer gets filled in from memory at 22:00 and loses field 5 first.

Paper, spreadsheet or both

Do both, in that order. Paper at the door for the 10-second entry, spreadsheet for the weekly transfer, 15 minutes every Sunday. Name files YYYY-MM and keep 13 monthly files: 12 months of data plus the current one. Back the folder up to a second device monthly, because a lost log has the same value as no log. If you take card payments from visitors, the payment record and the visit log should share the same date and name, which makes reconciliation a 5-minute job instead of an hour.

Rules that keep it usable

Tell visitors at the door, in 1 sentence, that you keep a contact record for 12 months and why. Keep the sheet face-down or in a folder when visitors are in the room, and store the archive where only 2 people can reach it. Review the sheet every 30 days for blank field 5 entries; 3 or more blanks in a month means the clipboard is in the wrong place. At 12 months, delete or shred the oldest month, and note the deletion date on the folder, so retention is a habit rather than a guess.

What to leave out

Keep the log to 6 fields and resist adding 3 more. Do not write card numbers, ID scans or medical details about a visitor: a phone number plus a name is enough to trace a visit, and extra data means extra risk with no extra value. Camera footage, if you keep any, should be overwritten after 30 days and should never be the only record. One more line worth adding at the bottom of each page: the 12-month destruction date, so retention is checked once a year instead of argued about.

Using the log when something goes wrong

If 1 kitten shows ringworm on a Tuesday, pull the last 21 days of lines and sort by field 4: every visitor who touched that litter, and every cat they touched after. Call the 3-5 people involved within 24 hours and ask about lesions. The same sort answers the reverse question when a buyer reports a problem 2 weeks after pickup: 1 filter on the date and the group, 30 seconds of work, and a factual reply instead of a memory contest.

Next steps

1. Print 1 sheet with the 6 columns above and 50 numbered rows.
2. Put the clipboard and a pen within 2 m of the entry door today.
3. Add the 1-sentence notice visitors read at the door.
4. Transfer to a YYYY-MM spreadsheet every Sunday, 15 minutes.
5. Review blanks monthly and shred the oldest month at 12 months.

Pair the visit log with the cattery vaccine schedule so a visitor question about dates can be answered from 1 folder. The numbering in field 4 should match your cattery record keeping system, or the two files will not join. A rough per-kitten budget, including the 20-40 USD a year a paper log actually costs, is in the cost calculator.

Terms mentioned in this article

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Frequently asked

Related guides

• Cattery Disinfectant: 3 Classes, 1:32, 10 Minutes
• Cattery Hygiene: 1:32 Bleach, 30-Second Hands
• Cattery Disease Screening: 4 Tests Every 6 Months
• Cattery Kitten Socialization: Weeks 2 to 7
• Cattery Quarantine Room: 2-Meter Buffer, 14 Days
• Cattery Records: 5 Sheets, 5 Years, One Chip Trail