The birth itself, written down while it is fresh
Details that feel unforgettable at midnight in the lambing pen are easy to mix up once three more animals have been born by morning, so write the birth down the same day. Start with the mother: her name or tag number, where she gave birth and roughly when. Add the sire if he is known, whether the birth was a single, a twin or a triplet, and the sex of each newborn. Note how the birth went in plain words — unseen and easy, watched over, or assisted — because a difficult birth this season is exactly the information you want when planning next season's matings and deciding which females to watch most closely. If a youngster was slow to stand, needed warming or seemed weak, that belongs on its record too, along with what you did about it.
Feeding and the first checks to record
The most important entry on a newborn's record is whether it has fed properly. Note when you first saw it suckle, or, if it was bottle-fed or tubed, what it was given and roughly how much: that first milk from the mother carries the protection a calf, kid or lamb depends on during its first days, and a gap here explains a great deal if the youngster later fades. If more than one youngster is born to the same mother, note which fed first and which needed help finding the teat, because the one that struggled at the first feed is the one to watch at the second. Record whether the navel was dipped, since that is a small job that is easy to intend and forget. Add a birth weight if you have scales, or an honest estimate, and a line about how the youngster seems: bright and bawling, quiet, or struggling. Those few lines become the baseline that every later check is measured against.
Identification, and the mother's side of the page
Give the newborn its identity on the day it is born, even if the physical tag goes in a little later: write down the ear tag, tattoo or management number it will carry, and set it against its mother's number so the family line is never in doubt. The mother's record deserves entries the same day as well — how she is milking, whether she has cleaned properly, whether she accepted the youngster straight away or needed watching, and any help or treatment she had. Linking the two records from day one means that when the youngster is eventually sold, shown or bred from, its whole beginning can be handed over with it rather than reconstructed from memory.
Keeping the record alive after day one
A birth record is the first page, not the whole story. Add entries as they happen: weaning date and weight, illnesses and anything given for them, routine health work your vet advises, and management jobs such as castration or disbudding where those are part of your system. When several species arrive across a season — calves first, lambs close behind, kids in between — one page per animal, kept the same way every time, is what keeps the whole holding straight. A record that starts on the day of birth and grows like this becomes that animal's Pet Passport on KinsLe: one portable packet holding its history together, ready for a vet visit, a sale, or your own memory on a busy morning.