User guide › Load your herd

Load your whole herd at once

Already have your animals on a spreadsheet or in your records? Instead of adding them one by one, you can load them all into KraalBook in one go. It takes a bit of care with the spreadsheet, so please read these steps — they'll save you a lot of frustration.

⬇ Download herd template (CSV)

Best done on a computer. Opens in Excel or Google Sheets.

⚠️ Read this first — Excel can quietly break your data

Spreadsheets like to “tidy up” what you type, and it causes two problems that make imports fail: long ID numbers get shortened (and the real digits are lost), and dates get reformatted. Step 2 below shows you how to stop this before you start typing. Two minutes there saves a lot of redoing.

Step 1 Download the template (on a computer)

Click “Download herd template (CSV)” above. It downloads a file called kraalbook-herd-import-template.csv. Open it in Excel or Google Sheets.

The first row is the column headings. The next few rows are filled-in examples to show you the format — delete those example rows before you add your own animals (or leave them; they're valid).

Step 2 Stop Excel breaking your numbers & dates

Do this before you start typing — it's the number-one cause of frustration.

⚠️ ID numbers (the eid_tag column)

A 15-digit electronic tag like 982000123456789 gets turned by Excel into 9.82E+14, and the real digits are lost — they can't be recovered. To prevent this:

⚠️ Dates (the date_of_birth column)

Use the format YYYY-MM-DD, e.g. 2022-03-15 (year-month-day). Excel may re-display it as 2022/03/15 or 15/03/2022 — the app understands those too, but if you ever get a date error, set that column to Text (as above) and type the date as 2022-03-15.

Excel Format Cells dialog with the eid_tag column selected and Text chosen in the Category list
Set the eid_tag column to Text before typing, so long tag numbers aren't shortened.

General spreadsheet rules

Step 3 Fill in your animals (column guide)

For every animal you must fill in: a tag (visual_tag or eid_tag), the species, and the sex. Everything else is optional but useful.

Fill in the spreadsheet in English

The column guide below is in English — and so is the spreadsheet. Keep the column headings exactly as they are, and enter the species and sex in English (cattle, sheep, goat, pig; M, F). Your own words — breed, colour and camp names — you can write in your own language.

ColumnWhat to put
visual_tagThe ear-tag/number you read by eye (up to 10 characters). Fill this in OR eid_tag.
eid_tagThe 15-digit electronic (RFID) number, starts with 982. Optional. ⚠️ Format the column as Text first (Step 2), or leave blank.
speciesOne of: cattle, sheep, goat, pig.
sexM (male), F (female), or X (mixed — only for a batch).
kindindividual or batch. Leave blank for a single animal (defaults to individual).
head_countHow many animals this row is. 1 for an individual; the number in a batch.
breede.g. Bonsmara, Dorper. Optional.
date_of_birthYYYY-MM-DD, e.g. 2022-03-15. Optional. Must be a real, past date.
coloure.g. Brown, White. Optional.
cattle_categoryCattle only: heifer, cow, bull, ox, steer, or calf.
location_nameThe camp/location name. If it doesn't match a camp you've made in the app, the animal still loads — just without a camp — and the app tells you so you can fix it.
mother_tagTo record a calf against its mother, put the mother's tag here (her visual_tag or eid_tag). The mother can be another row in this file or an animal already in your herd. Want 5 calves on one cow? Give each of the 5 calf rows the same mother_tag. (Individual animals only.)

Example rows (already in the template)

The order matches the headings: visual_tag, eid_tag, species, sex, kind, head_count, breed, date_of_birth, colour, cattle_category, location_name, mother_tag.

CA123,,cattle,F,individual,1,Bonsmara,2020-03-15,Brown,cow,South Camp,
CALF55,,cattle,M,individual,1,Bonsmara,2025-09-01,Brown,calf,South Camp,CA123
EWE7,,sheep,F,individual,1,Dorper,,White,,West Camp,
PIGLOT1,,pig,X,batch,30,Large White,,,,Pig House,

Notice the second row (CALF55) has CA123 in its last column — that links the calf to its mother in the first row.

Step 4 Get the file onto your phone

Coming soon

Soon you'll be able to upload your filled-in spreadsheet straight from this computer — no need to move the file to your phone. For now, get the file onto your phone and import it in the KraalBook app (Settings → Import herd).

Send the saved CSV to your phone — keep it as a .csv:

Step 5 Import it in the app

  1. Open KraalBook → Settings → Import herd.
  2. Tap “Choose CSV file” and pick the file you saved.
  3. The app shows a preview: how many animals are ready, how many were rejected (with the reason for each), any camps it doesn't recognise, and how many calves will be linked to their mothers.
  4. Tap “Import [number] animals”.

If some rows were rejected, fix just those rows in your spreadsheet and import again — animals that already loaded are skipped automatically, so you can't create duplicates.

KraalBook app Import herd preview screen showing how many animals are ready, how many were rejected, and calves linked to their mothers
The preview before you import — check it, then tap Import.

Troubleshooting

If a row is rejected, the app tells you why. Here's what the common messages mean and how to fix them:

“eid_tag … looks scrambled by Excel”
Excel turned the number into shorthand (like 9.82E+14) and the digits are lost. Format the eid_tag column as Text and type it again, or leave it blank if the animal has a visual tag.
“date_of_birth … isn't a date we recognise”
Use YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. 2022-03-15). Set the column to Text if Excel keeps changing it.
“At least one of visual_tag or eid_tag is required”
Every row needs a tag of some kind — a visual_tag, an eid_tag, or both.
“visual_tag too long”
Keep the visual tag to 10 characters or fewer.
“already exists in your herd”
That animal is already loaded; it's safely skipped. Nothing to fix — you won't create a duplicate.
“The file is missing required columns”
Don't rename or delete the heading row. Re-download the template and copy your data into it.
“mother_tag … not found”
The mother's tag must be spelled exactly as it appears on her own row or in your herd.

Adding just a few animals? You can also add them one at a time in the app.

See how to add animals