Data Formats, Requirements, and Default Values

 Birth date (REQUIRED) 
 WeaningDate
 Castr_Ovrct_date
 YearlingDate
 LeaveDate
 SlaughterDate — Date format: "yyyy-mm-dd"|"Mon dd, yyyy"|"mm/dd/yyyy"

 Sex — (REQUIRED)
       M : Male
       F : Female
       C : Cow
       S : Steer     ?? keep current data as they are ??
       B : Bull      ?? keep current data as they are ??

 BirthID — (REQUIRED) Assigned at birth:
           4 digits year + 3 or more digits sequential number for the
           year starts at 0001 (field 'width' is set to be 8; assuming
           a maximum of 9999 animals per year)

 PreRegID — Intrim IDs, formulated from "BirthID" + other info,
            used as a handle to communicate with breed associations.
            (for historical data; may be deprecated??)

 RegID — Registration ID obtained from breed association.
 
 Intl_ID — International (cattle) ID (refer to CBCD ID Guide)

 Location|Farm code — (REQUIRED) Codes defined in this database.
                      Location codes are assigned as location info are
                      added to this db.
                      Code a column when there are different locations
                      on one sheet; Otherwise not to code but to use
                      pull-down selector at step 4 during data upload.

 Breed code — (REQUIRED) Code defined in this database.
              Breed code are assigned as breed info entered into the db.
              Code a column when there are different breeds on
              one data sheet; Otherwise not to code but use
              pull-down selector at step 4 during data upload.

 ISUBPID — ISU Breeding Program ID (aka. "BLUP ID"?)

 Season — S - Spring (Birth time season)
          F - Fall
          (How about beef? Also no winter or summer birth?)

 Presentation — Birth orientation (normal, abnormal,
                Anterior, Posterior, etc?) [Abbr. format or free text??]

 TWorET — Twin or Embryo transferred 

 AIorNA — AI (artificial insemination) or NAtural born

---

Tips

 o How to use "Comments" field to enter in-frequent meta data:

   "Comments" field is a free text space. It's designed to accept multiple
   and varying kinds of meta data that's easily parsable/retrievable.

    1. One piece of meta data be represented by "name":"value" pairs
    2. Multiple meta data are separated with semi-column (";")
       (therefore the “:” and “;” are reserved, they cannot be used
       elsewhere in “Comments” text)

   Example: "Data source: ABC Lboratory; Note: this animal might ate
   something before blood sampling".

   Note: All text can be in one line.

---

A shared edit copy of this doc is on Google Drive. Feel free to edit. Mature edits will be updated to here.