Independent Review - BA for Hamsters
The following review of Breeders Assistant for Hamsters (version 3) was published in the British Hamster Association journal in 2001. It was written by Marianne Bornhult. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of Marianne Bornhult.
Pedigree computer program review-
BREEDER'S ASSISTANT FOR HAMSTERS
By Marianne Bornhult
As a breeder, the tedious task of keeping records of all my hamsters birth dates, pedigree etc was getting beyond me -my life is too busy, and for the past few years my hamster details have consisted of little pieces of scrap paper with notes scribbled on, all bundled up in an envelope. Not ideal! So, when I got my first computer a few years ago, something which was high on my list of priorities was to purchase a program that would store all my hamster details and print out neat pedigrees.
I duly purchased a program, input details of my hamsters- tedious task, but once it's done it's done! It was great to be able to print out pedigrees for my animals.
However, over a period of time I started to realise that I missed certain features in my program. I wanted more, and I wasn't able to customise my pedigrees quite the way I wanted to be able to do. So I went trawling around the internet, and found that a lot of websites offer similar programs for sale, but generally only for cats and dogs. There was the odd one that dealt with small animals, but it was invariably US orientated and not what I wanted. So when the owner of Tenset Software, whose cat and dog pedigree programs I was already using, asked me if I'd help him develop a program specifically for hamsters, of course I agreed! (A Fancy Rat one was developed at the same time.)
Breeders Assistant uses Windows, so is very easy to navigate if you have any computer knowledge. There are more functions than I can mention, but the main one is, of course, to keep records of your hamsters. To get started, you need to enter details of people first (you have a choice on whether to work with hamsters or contacts -contacts being people- or matings, show records etc.) such as breeders, judges and similar. For each person you enter name, whether they are a breeder, judge, or whatever, and any other details you may or may not have -such as hamstery name and address. If you enter hamstery name, every time you enter a hamster with that prefix into your database, the correct breeder will automatically show up as the breeder. Next, you enter the details about your hamsters-one per record, which show in the form of a window or card. Here you enter the hamster's name, (which can be a registered name for those in countries such as Sweden where hamsters are registered) title such as Champion (again for those countries -although I wish we had a similar system here!)(choosing from a menu of titles which you can customise if any titles you need are missing) , pet name if you wish, date of birth, registration number if applicable, breeder and owner (which is easily done as you will simply chose from a drop down menu of names which includes all the people you have previously entered into your database) and of course species, coat type and colour. The type is very simple to choose -there is an enormous list of varieties, and you simply click on the one you want, and it is entered automatically. (Such as Syrian Longhair Black Eyed Cream Satin, Campbell Russian Agouti Mottled etc.) You can customise the database to suit you own needs -and so to only show species/colours that you keep. You can also easily add new colours/varieties, as and when they appear which of course is quite frequently. If you want to be really detailed, you can then add all sorts of notes about the hamster in question, such as health records if any and photographs -the photographs I found particularly useful.
Having entered my own hamsters into the database, I needed to start work on their pedigrees. This entailed creating a record for each hamster in their pedigrees -with as little or much information as I had to hand. For some I only knew name, sex, and colour/coat. For others I had further details, such as date of birth and/or death. Once done, it was very easy to assemble the pedigree for each hamster. Clicking the tab for "Ancestors" gave me a blank pedigree, and each time I clicked on a space in it, a drop down menu gave me a choice of all the hamsters in the database -either male or female, as obviously a grand mother for instance can only be female! I chose the name, and the hamster's name and title appeared. Once I had done this with a couple of hamsters, the program remembered what was behind hamsters already entered, and so now I can simply click on the names of one of my males and one of my females, and hey presto the entire pedigree from a mating between the two appears as if by magic.
To print the pedigree out, I had a choice of various formats -number of generations, inbreeding coefficient showed or not, a logo can be added, the hamster's photograph can be included, a watermark picture can be added to the background of the pedigree, etc etc. You can even print circular pedigrees should you so wish -although this is more a novelty for fun the way I see it! It is also possible to create your own preferred pedigree layout, or more than one if you wish, and save it for future use.
Apart from the obvious feature of creating and printing pedigrees, you can also create show records for each hamster, veterinary records, accounts, there is an appointments calendar, you can do trial matings to see what a particular mating would look like pedigree wise and so on. It is easy to update or change the details for any hamster at any given time, as you simply click on its name in the list of all hamsters, and make changes accordingly.
There are more features in Breeders Assistant than I can mention, and many that I haven't even tried out yet. There is a very useful tutorial which will tell you everything you need to know, and also an online manual covering close to 300 pages for the really curious!
One of my favourite features of Breeders Assistant is that each hamster's pedigree will also automatically be available in text format, which makes it easy to e-mail, and in html format, which made it very easy for me to include the pedigrees of my cats on my website.(Haven't done it with the hamsters yet!)
All in all, an impressive program which I am very pleased with.
Breeders Assistant 3 is available from Tenset, tel.0870 870 7740 (+44 1223 290291) Or can be purchased from their website (where a trial version of the program can be downloaded) http://www.tenset.co.uk There are also other versions available, such as for dogs, cats, rabbits, cavies, rats etc. The price for the hamster program is £49 if downloaded from the website (credit card payment) or £59 if posted to you on a CD ROM.
Marianne Bornhult
NOTE: Since this review was written our prices have been revised.
