This is a one-page record sheet for an American Bresse flock. Print it free. Track hatch date, source, pen or band, weights at weeks 8, 12, and 16, leg color, comb notes, and the keep-or-table call. Written records make your birds worth more than their price tag.
Why keep a flock record?
A flock record is a written log of your birds. One sheet holds a hatch: where the birds came from, how they grew, and what you decided. Two cockerels can look alike in the yard, but the one with a written 16-week weight is worth more, because you can prove what it is. Buyers pay for proof, breeding programs are built on it, and memory cannot supply either.
The sheet below fits on one page. It tracks the few things that matter. Hatch date. Source or line. Weights at weeks 8, 12, and 16. The 16-week weight is the number a program lives by. Leg color, comb notes, and the keep-or-table call round it out. Ten minutes on each weigh day keeps it current.
Serious about breeding? This is the page worth keeping from day one. Print a fresh sheet for each hatch. Pin it near the scale. Write at the pen, in pencil, not from memory at night.
The One-Page Flock Record
Hatch group:Year:Keeper:
| Hatch date | Source / line | Pen or band | Count | Wt wk 8 | Wt wk 12 | Wt wk 16 | Legs slate blue? Y/N | Comb notes | Keep or table | Sire / dam if known | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
What are my weigh-day numbers telling me? Which birds do the records say to keep? Get Your Answers Live at the Weekly Coffee Hour Q&A.
Join the call on Monday (Free)How to fill it in
One line per bird or per small group
- Hatch date and source. Write these the day the chicks arrive. Name the breeder or the line if you know it.
- Pen or band. Leg bands are cheap and end the guessing. Write the band color or number here.
- Weights at weeks 8, 12, and 16. Weigh on a fixed schedule with the same scale, and the 16-week number is the one that decides breeders. The exact weigh-day routine lives in the Field Guide chapters and the club.
- Legs slate blue? Yes or no. Slate blue is the breed's must-have. A yellow-legged bird is a table bird, not a breeder.
- Comb notes. Upright, straight, well-cut points. Note anything odd.
- Keep or table. Make the call at 16 weeks with the sheet in hand. Keep the best. Eat the rest.
- Sire and dam. Fill this in if you know the parents. Pedigree pens make this column easy.
One habit ties it together. Never trust a weight you did not write down. The sheet does the remembering, so next season you pick breeders with numbers, not hunches. The full raising path lives in the guide, and the male decisions live in the rooster guide.
Take the guide with you
This chapter lands in your inbox with the rest of the guide: all 6 chapters. Then the working emails start, one job at a time: penciling the budget, switching feed phases on schedule, making the keep-or-table call. They run until a French-quality table bird comes off your own ground.