Add an animal from a document

If you have a registration certificate or passport, you can add the animal by photographing the paper instead of typing every field. AlpacaKeep reads the name, number, birth date and pedigree, and you check every field before anything is saved.

Plan. Reading a document uses the AI feature, which needs the Farm plan or Pro. On Free or Solo the entry point shows a paywall card.

Steps#

1. Add menu → Add from a document. Open the sidebar Add menu on desktop, or the Add sheet on mobile, and pick Add from a document. If you are already on an animal's pedigree page, use Add ancestors from a document there instead.
2. Species on the document. Pick Alpaca, Llama, Guanaco, or Vicuña. This helps the reader interpret color and fiber type.
3. Add certificate pages. Under Add certificate pages, pick a photo or a PDF. Up to three pages per certificate. JPG, PNG or PDF; PDFs up to 3.5 MB. Photos are shrunk on your device before upload.
4. Read this document. Press the button. Keep the page open. Reading takes about a minute.
5. Check what we read. The review page opens. Every field shows what the model read and where it read it. Nothing is written to your herd yet.
6. Decide about each ancestor. For the sire, dam and older ancestors on the paper, pick one option per row:
   • Use existing to link an animal you already have.
   • Create new ancestor to add it as a reference animal.
   • Pick an animal on the farm to search by name.
   • Skip to leave that position empty.
7. Save to my herd. Press Save to my herd. The animal is created, or the empty fields on an existing animal are filled in. The ancestors are linked, and the certificate pages become documents on the animal.

What to check before saving#

Look at the field, then look at the paper.

• Fields the reader could not make out start blank with Not readable. Type it in. Type them in yourself.
• If two readings of the same registration number disagreed, the page asks which one is right. Pick one before saving.
• If the birth date is written in an ambiguous format, pick the reading that matches the paper.
• If the certificate matches an animal you already have, the page asks whether this is the same animal or a new one. Decide first.
• A color that is not on our color list is left blank with a hint. Pick the closest color or leave it blank.

Undo#

After saving, the saved panel has an Undo this import button. It removes what this reading created, as long as nothing has been built on top of it (30 days). If an ancestor has since been edited, the undo names those animals and stops. Once the animal has been used in your records (a mating, a birth, a weight), the undo for this run is closed.

Discarded readings and undone readings expire after 30 days. Their pages leave storage; nothing they created remains.

Limits and cost#

• Each reading uses one of your monthly readings. The capture page shows the count under Documents read this month.
• The Farm plan includes 40 readings per month. Pro includes 200. The count resets each month.
• Reading the same file twice is recognised: the capture page tells you when you have read this document before, and lets you open the earlier reading or read it again.
• Up to 3 pages per certificate, JPG, PNG or PDF, with the pages together under 3.5 MB.

Privacy#

Your pages are sent to the AI provider named on the review page to be read, and they are kept with the reading for up to 30 days unless you save it. See the AI section on our privacy page for details.

Related#

• Add an animal (typing it in by hand).
• Linking parents: pick an animal or type a name.
• When to add a reference animal.