AlpacaKeepBasics
Create your farm
Your first step after signing up: name your farm and pick a Herd code, then land on your dashboard.
Help Center
Short, plain-English how-to articles for the every-day tasks in AlpacaKeep. Find the one you need, get in and out fast.
New to AlpacaKeep? Start here
Basics
Find your way around AlpacaKeep
A quick tour of the main menu and the Dashboard so you know where everything lives on your first day.
Basics
Add an animal
Add a new animal to your herd in a minute, plus the one choice people get wrong.
Basics
Bring your herd across from a spreadsheet or another app
Move your animals into AlpacaKeep from a CSV: pick the file, set the formats, preview, and import. Undo the whole run if it looks wrong.
Basics
Fix a mistake: edit, delete, or undo
Made a typo or deleted the wrong thing? Almost everything in AlpacaKeep can be edited, recovered, or undone. Here is how.
Getting started
Basics
Sign in with email or Google
Two ways into AlpacaKeep: email and password, or Continue with Google. It is one account either way.
Basics
Create your farm
Your first step after signing up: name your farm and pick a Herd code, then land on your dashboard.
Basics
Find your way around AlpacaKeep
A quick tour of the main menu and the Dashboard so you know where everything lives on your first day.
Basics
Herd code and Name prefix, explained
Your Herd code is a short farm slug used in sale-page URLs. Your Name prefix is the readable version AlpacaKeep suggests in the Registered name field.
Basics
Bring your herd across from a spreadsheet or another app
Move your animals into AlpacaKeep from a CSV: pick the file, set the formats, preview, and import. Undo the whole run if it looks wrong.
Basics
Fix a mistake: edit, delete, or undo
Made a typo or deleted the wrong thing? Almost everything in AlpacaKeep can be edited, recovered, or undone. Here is how.
Basics
Set your units, date format, time zone, and currency
Choose your weight unit, date format, time zone, and currency once on Settings → Farm profile. They apply to everyone on the farm.
Basics
Invite your team and what each role can see
Invite people to your farm by email and give each a role. Roles decide who can edit, who sees money, and who is read-only.
Basics
Add AlpacaKeep to your phone
Save AlpacaKeep to your phone's home screen so it opens with one tap. Works in Safari on iPhone and Chrome on Android.
Your animals
Basics
Inside an animal's profile: the six tabs
A quick map of every animal profile: what Overview, Health, Breeding, Fiber, Records, and Finance each hold.
Basics
Add an animal
Add a new animal to your herd in a minute, plus the one choice people get wrong.
Advanced
Origin: bred here or acquired?
Origin means where an animal was bred, not who owns it now. Pick wrong and the wrong farm name gets stamped on it.
Basics
An animal's status (active, for sale, sold, and more)
What each animal status means, and why you change it with lifecycle actions instead of editing a dropdown.
Basics
Identify an animal (tag, microchip, registration, registered name)
What the Tag number, Microchip ID, Registration number, Registered name, and Bloodline fields are for, and when to use each.
Basics
Track weight and body condition (BCS)
Log a weight and an optional body condition score from an animal's Health tab, and weigh many animals at once.
Advanced
Color, markings, and eye color
Set an animal's primary and secondary color, free-text markings, and eye color, plus the blue-eye welfare note.
Advanced
Bloodline and fiber type
Record an animal's foundation breeding line and its fiber type, and why the old Breed field is gone.
Advanced
Record an animal's death
Use Mark deceased to record a death, set the status to Deceased, and keep the animal's history. There's an undo.
Pedigrees and ancestors
Basics
Linking parents: pick an animal or type a name
Set an animal's sire and dam by picking from your herd, choosing a reference, or just typing a name.
Advanced
Tracked animals, reference animals, and typed-in ancestors
Three different things in AlpacaKeep: a full tracked animal, a lightweight reference, and a typed-in ancestor.
Advanced
When to add a reference animal (and why it does not use up your plan)
Use a reference animal for outside studs and off-farm ancestors. It does not count toward your plan limit.
Basics
Read your animal's pedigree (family tree)
Find and read an animal's pedigree tree on its Breeding tab: parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
Breeding
Basics
Breeding from mating to cria: the whole cycle
Follow one mating from plan to newborn cria, and learn which screen each step lives on.
Basics
Log a mating
Record one sire covering one or more dams from the Breeding hub, and what each field means.
Basics
Confirm a pregnancy and record the result
Confirm a mating from the Breeding hub, set the method and date, and learn the outcomes you'll see later.
Basics
Record a birth, step by step
Record a cria's birth from the dam's Breeding tab, and what the app pre-fills for you.
Advanced
Inbreeding (COI): how closely related are two animals?
What the COI percentage means, the app's Safe, Linebreeding, and Close mating buckets, and where you see it.
Advanced
The mating recommender: how matches are ranked
Pick a dam or sire on the Plan tab to get ranked matches, with goal presets and five sliders explained.
Advanced
The grey-on-white breeding warning (and what a DNA test changes)
Why a grey-with-white pairing asks you to acknowledge a warning, and how a negative DNA result clears it.
Health, events and medications
Basics
Log a health event for one animal
Record a vaccination, treatment, or check on one animal from the Log an event drawer or its Health tab, with medication details when needed.
Basics
Detailed log: big jobs for a whole group
Use the Detailed log page for heavy work: weight-based doses per animal, conformation checks, and follow-up reminders in one save.
Basics
Log an event: the everyday way to record things
Open the Log an event drawer from the Add menu or the Events page to record up to four events for any animals in one save.
Advanced
Your medication list and your medicine cabinet (stock)
Two different things under Settings: the medication library is your list of medicine types; medication stock is what you physically have on hand.
Advanced
Withdrawal periods: keeping meat and milk safe to sell
A withdrawal period is the wait after a medication before meat or milk is safe to sell. AlpacaKeep tracks the clear date for you.
Advanced
Schedule follow-up doses (boosters and courses)
When you log a medication, set up follow-up doses so AlpacaKeep creates a reminder task for the booster or course.
Tasks and routines
Basics
Events vs. tasks: which one do I use?
An event records something that already happened; a task is something still to do. How they work together, with a vaccination day as the example.
Basics
Create a task (one-off or repeating)
Make a one-off or repeating task in AlpacaKeep, set its priority, and link it to animals or an event.
Advanced
Routines: save and reuse a task
Save a job you repeat as a reusable routine, then turn it into real tasks for animals, a paddock, or the herd.
Advanced
How repeating tasks work
Why repeating tasks only appear one at a time, and how a backdated completion sets the next due date.
Fiber
Basics
Add a fiber lab report
Add a fiber lab report to an animal from its Fiber tab. Upload the lab PDF to fill the numbers in, or type them. Free on every plan.
Advanced
Understanding your fiber report (what the numbers mean)
A plain-language guide to the numbers on a fiber lab report in AlpacaKeep: AFD, SD, CV, CF, SF, CRV, staple length, and more.
AdvancedFarm plan
Fiber quality and 'overdue for testing'
The farm-wide Fiber hub ranks your herd by fiber quality and flags animals overdue for testing. Needs the Farm plan.
Selling
BasicsFarm plan
List an animal for sale
List an animal for sale in AlpacaKeep, set a price and a one-line highlight, and share its sale page.
BasicsFarm plan
Your animal's sale page and its web address
Every listed animal gets its own public sale page at a fixed web address that does not change when you rename your prefix.
BasicsFarm plan
Show your for-sale animals on your own website
Paste one line of code onto your website and your live AlpacaKeep listings appear there, updated automatically, with each card linking to its sale page.
Advanced
Reserve, sell, or transfer an animal
Mark an animal reserved or sold in AlpacaKeep, undo a sale, or record a local transfer for a loan or boarding.
Money and reports
Basics
Record income and expenses
Log a sale or a cost in AlpacaKeep, tie it to animals, and split a shared cost across the herd.
Advanced
Who can see money on your farm
Only the Owner and Co-Owner can see Finance in AlpacaKeep, and why that limit is enforced, not just hidden.
Advanced
The reports explained
What each of the five lists on the AlpacaKeep Reports page tells you, and where to export your data as CSV.
Settings, data and account
Basics
Keep a contacts list (vets, breeders, buyers)
Save the vets, suppliers, breeders, and buyers you deal with, then link them to animals and purchases.
Basics
Attach documents (certificates, lab reports, receipts)
Attach BVDV certificates, registration papers, lab PDFs, and receipts to an animal or a finance entry.
Basics
Group animals into paddocks
Name your paddocks and pastures, then move animals into them so you always know who is where.
Basics
Get your data out (export)
Your data is yours. Download CSV files of your animals, events, shows, finances, and fiber any time.
Basics
Your account and deleting your data
Your account is global across farms. How to request deletion, the 30-day cool-off, and how to cancel it.
Advanced
See what changed (the activity log)
The activity log is your farm's history: who did what and when, from adding an animal to changing a role.
Basics
Your plan, the free trial, and what each tier unlocks
How AlpacaKeep plans work: Free, Solo, Farm, and Pro, plus the 30-day free trial that unlocks everything and needs no card.