Five tables run a cattery: mating, pregnancy, queening, weaning, health. If you cannot rebuild a litter's first 8 weeks from those 5 tables in under 10 minutes, the records are the problem, not your memory. Three items decide whether a kitten's history survives a vet visit, a move, or a new owner: the weight curve, the vaccine lot number, and both parents' genetic test results.
What each of the 5 tables must hold
Mating table: queen ID, stud ID, date, number of coverings, and the due date calculated at day 63 to 65. Use 1 row per mating instead of 1 row per litter. A queen that misses on 2 cycles needs those 2 dates to justify changing the stud, and a note written 4 months later will not carry that decision.
Pregnancy table: weight at mating, weight at weeks 3, 5 and 7 (total gain is usually 0.9 to 1.5 kg), ultrasound at day 21 to 25, X-ray at day 55 to 58 for a kitten count, plus any discharge or appetite change. The X-ray count is what tells you at 2 a.m. whether the queen is finished at 4 kittens or still carrying a 5th. A full field list sits in breeding record fields.
Queening table: time the first kitten arrived, interval per kitten, placenta count, birth weight in grams, minutes to first suckle. Ten to 60 minutes between kittens is normal; call the vet if 1 kitten has not arrived within 2 hours of hard straining, or if the queen rests more than 4 hours with a kitten clearly left.
Weaning table: first gruel day (day 28 is a common start), first solid meal at 6 weeks, fully weaned by 8 weeks, grams eaten per kitten per day. Health table: vaccine name, lot number, expiry, injection site, deworming dates, weight, fecal results, FeLV/FIV status. Deworming every 2 weeks from 2 to 12 weeks is the usual litter schedule.
The 3 items every litter must keep
Weight curve. Weigh at the same hour daily on a scale accurate to 1 g for the first 14 days, then every 2 days until 6 weeks. Expect 10 to 15 g of gain per day after the first 48 hours; a loss of more than 5 percent of birth weight in 24 hours is a call-the-vet event, and 2 flat days is a supplement decision. A birth weight under 85 g puts a kitten in the watch group. A kitten weight tracker removes the arithmetic.
Vaccine lot number. Record manufacturer, lot, expiry, date and site for every dose at 8, 12 and 16 weeks. Lot numbers exist for recalls and for proof when a new owner flies the cat at 4 months: rabies rules commonly require a 21-day wait after the dose, and some destinations 90 days. One missing lot number can cost an owner a 3-week delay or a second injection.
Parent genetic tests. PKD1 DNA once per cat, HCM echocardiogram at 1 year then every 12 months, blood type as A, B or AB, FeLV/FIV negative within 12 months of the mating, and breed panels such as SMA in Maine Coons. A kitten sold without these 3 items has no usable medical history at 3 years old, which is exactly when a new vet asks for it.
Digitizing without breaking the paper logic
Scan each paper form at 300 dpi into PDF, 1 file per event, named year-month-day_litter_doc, for example 2026-03-14_L07_xray.pdf. Keep 1 spreadsheet row per kitten and 1 column per event, so a 6-kitten litter with 9 events becomes a 6 by 12 grid that exports to CSV in 1 click. Photos of a scale display are acceptable only when the file name carries the date and the weight in grams; otherwise 200 photos are 200 unlabeled numbers.
Backup frequency that survives a dead laptop
Use 3-2-1: 3 copies, 2 media types, 1 offsite. Sync daily to an external drive, upload weekly to encrypted cloud storage, write a monthly cold copy to a second drive kept outside the house. Test 1 restore every 6 months by opening a random 2-year-old litter file on a machine that is not the main one. Keep records for the life of the cat plus 5 years, which for a kitten homed at 12 weeks means 15 to 20 years of storage. A 2 TB drive holds roughly 400,000 scanned pages at 300 dpi, so space is never a reason to delete.
The 10-minute audit
Pick 1 kitten homed 2 years ago at random. Within 10 minutes you should answer 2 questions: birth weight in grams, and the date plus lot number of the last vaccine. When either takes longer, the cause is almost always 1 of 3 things: weights kept in a phone note, lot numbers written on the vaccine box instead of the table, or genetic results buried in an inbox. Fix that 1 item before adding a 6th table. Shelter staff run the same test on intake files, and the failure points are identical; see shelter records.
Fields, rhythm, and retention at a glance
| Table | Core fields | Update rhythm | Keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mating | 4 | 1 to 3 records per cycle | life + 5 years |
| Pregnancy | 6 | weekly from day 21 | life + 5 years |
| Queening | 7 | every 10 to 60 minutes during labor | life + 5 years |
| Weaning | 4 | daily for weeks 4 to 8 | life + 5 years |
| Health | 8 | 6 to 9 events per year | life + 5 years |
Where catteries lose the thread
Three patterns account for most gaps. First, weights recorded only at birth and at 8 weeks, which hides a 3-day stall at day 11. Second, a single copy on the laptop that also holds the photos, so a dead drive erases 2 years. Third, a stud's HCM echo done once at 2 years and never repeated, leaving a 5-year-old breeding cat with a 3-year-old cardiac result. Each is fixed by 1 column or 1 calendar reminder, not by a new app.
What to do this week
- Create 1 folder per litter named by year and number, and put the 3 must-keeps at the top level.
- Block 30 minutes every Sunday to enter weights and photograph vaccine stickers into the health table.
- Scan any paper older than 12 months at 300 dpi, 1 file per event, then store the paper in 1 labeled box.
- Run the 10-minute audit on 2 kittens today and repair the field that failed.
- Put a 6-month restore test and a 12-month HCM reminder in the calendar now.
Frequently asked
How long should a cattery keep records for a cat it sold?
Keep the full file for the life of the cat plus 5 years, which for a kitten homed at 12 weeks works out to 15 to 20 years. Owners come back for vaccine lot numbers, HCM results and birth weights years later, and a 300 dpi scan needs about 2 MB per page, so a 2 TB drive covers roughly 400,000 pages.
Do I need 5 separate tables, or can one sheet do it all?
One flat sheet usually collapses at 3 litters, because mating dates and per-kitten weights have different row counts. Keep 1 row per mating, 1 row per kitten and 1 row per health event, then link them by litter ID and kitten ID. A 6-kitten litter with 9 events then stays a 6 by 12 grid that exports to CSV in 1 click.
Which parent tests are worth paying for first?
PKD1 DNA once per cat and an HCM echocardiogram at 1 year, repeated every 12 months, cover the 2 conditions buyers ask about most. Add blood type and a FeLV/FIV test within 12 months of mating, then breed panels such as SMA for Maine Coons. Skip these 3 and the kitten has no usable history at 3 years old.