Mother Hen 1.1.1 (Android)

Announcing Mother Hen for Android version 1.1.1!

Here are some of the new features:

  • It is now possible to to harvest eggs by type of bird, i.e. chicken, duck, quail, etc
  • A long press on a bird photo will allow you to set the primary picture and (finally) rearrange them!
  • You can now assign an egg color to birds
  • You can now assign a band color to birds
  • Added Guineafowl (by request)
  • Added the ability to track eggs on a hen by hen basis
  • The egg graph can now be grouped by egg color, bird type or both
  • Added current flock member count
  • Added CSV export for harvest history and financial journal
  • Added a one-time hint popup to help out people that haven’t discovered the graph yet 😀
  • Added additional time ranges (months) for financial statistics (by request)
  • Pictures added to Mother Hen should no longer be picked up by the media scanner and added to the gallery
  • Egg colors are now working when editing a breed
  • You can now associate a bird with certain journal entries and it will appear in the bird’s history (by request)
  • Two new shades of green for egg colors (by request)
  • The app icon should now fill the circle on Oreo devices
  • J’ai ajouté une traduction française. S’il vous plait, m’aider à l’améliorer

As you can see, we have gotten many feature requests and there are more yet to do, so please keep them coming. We enjoy feedback from users and it helps us build a better app.

Now that Android is caught up to iOS, feature-wise, the next big feature on the roadmap is data syncing with the cloud, in order to allow syncing between multiple devices and data backup. The current plan is to use the built-in cloud platforms native to each device, i.e. iCloud of iOS and Google Drive for Android initially, which will allow syncing to devices within a single account and then explore other options for cross-account syncing, like possibly Dropbox. If you have a favorite service that you use for this kind of purpose, please let us know in the comments.

– Wes Bustraan
Mother Hen Developer

12 thoughts to “Mother Hen 1.1.1 (Android)”

  1. Loving your app! I would love to see you create more apps for other animals. I’d personally use one for goats and one for swine. Your model is so user friendly. I haven’t found any apps for our other animals I like. Love the chicken app, would like to see more! Thanks!

  2. Please please can you add an optional record for date of birth of animals so it’s easier to track ages. Eventually also good to sort by dob or age.

    1. There is already “date of birth” record. It is the “Hatched” field on the bird’s record.

      As far as sorting goes, sorting by various fields other than name will be coming in a future version.

  3. Very interested in purchasing this app…I’m a BA by day, so my question is, can I download/export all the data the app holds?

    1. Yes, there are a couple ways. You can export egg collection history or the financial journal as CSV files, or otherwise (in the latest version of the Android version) you can turn on Dropbox synchronization and all of the data will be backed up to your Dropbox account.

      1. TY. Based on your reply I purchased the app to give it a closer look…however, I was disappointed at the level of detail I could keep on individual birds and that there wasn’t any easy way to tract hatchlings…the family tree is awkward at best. I prefer my spreadsheet and will not be using the app. Can you please tell me how to ensure there are no additional charges
        I might suggest that others may be more upset that there isn’t a trial period…and that paying for an app that, after further inspection you do not intend to use, might bother some in that refunds do not appear to be available. I will applaud your creativity in the app and that I’m sure there are many who will find it useful, but as a spreadsheet master, I think I’ll stay with what I’ve perfected on the data side and find another way to add pics to my information. Thank you

        1. Jan, I am sorry to hear that you were disappointed. I would welcome your feedback as to what “level of detail” that you were expecting to see. For example, I can’t tell what you mean by “tracking hatchlings”; how is that different from adding the new birds to the flock? I would certainly like to improve the family tree, but simply calling it “awkward at best” doesn’t help me understand what your expectations were.

          There are no additional charges. Mother Hen is not a subscription app; it is a one-time $2.99 purchase. For the Google Play Store, the standard refund period is 48 hours. However, if you can help me locate your order by giving me the state in which you reside, I can issue a refund of your $3.

          My only option for a “trial period” is to adopt a “freemium” or “shareware” scheme, where users would be able to download the app, but then be required to pay for it after some period of time. I feel like this would anger users a lot more, making it feel like a bait-and-switch. I would prefer to be upfront with users that I’d like to make a tiny income for the time I’ve invested.

  4. We are loving your app!

    My husband specifically requested that I say how much he loves the database export format, and pass on our appreciation of you making it available.

    We’ll have a couple small bugs and things written down more tidily later, but our first feature request would be Muscovy Ducks! They’re not only a different breed, but a different genus species (Cairina moschata), so even when I add them as a duck breed, they are categorized with all the Anas.

    It also does not seem possible to choose a bird with a photo uploaded when adding a purchase directly to the history log and not from the bird’s page itself. It would also be great to have an ‘add new’ option for birds in the list when adding a purchase event, since chances are good a new bird’s profile hasn’t been added to the flock page yet.

    Really enjoying this upgrade to my eyeballs from our xcel spreadsheet, thanks again!

    1. It makes me very happy when I hear that someone likes using the app.

      I will have to do some thinking about how to handle Muscovy Ducks. I originally added the genus field to the database because I needed a way to group the types of eggs from different types of birds. The genus made a nice multilingual key; I could put “Gallus” in the database and display it as “chicken” in English and “poulet” in French.

      I assumed that people would want to see the count of their chicken eggs separately from the duck eggs, quail eggs, etc, but I didn’t figure that they would want individual genera split out. Or, in other words, if customers buy eggs from you, would you label the Muscovy eggs as “duck” eggs, or would they be treated differently? Guineafowl and quail also get lumped together under the most common genus, because, again, I assumed people would want to track “guineafowl” eggs, rather than “Agelastes”, “Numida”, “Guttera”, etc. Would you want your Muscovy eggs graphed separately than your other domesticated ducks?

      The other issue is that in several places, I use silhouette icons for the types of birds. I’m not sure I could find a silhouette of a Muscovy that would look distinct enough from the other duck silhouette that users would know which one to choose.

      None of these are impossible things to solve, but it will take some time to think through the various challenges.

      Yes, currently, if you put in a new purchase record in the Finances area, you will only be able to select birds that already exist in the flock. If you aren’t seeing flock members that should be there, please let me know. I added your idea about being able to add new birds directly from the purchase record to my feature backlog.

  5. I love this app for keeping track of 4H record book stuff. I am trying to add Welsh Harlequin and Appleyard ducks but the app only wants to let me add them as chickens. Can you help?

    1. Hello Angela,

      To add a new duck breed, follow these steps:

      1. In the Flock list, click the “+” button to add a new bird
      2. By default, the chicken icon will be selected. To add a duck or duck breed, select the duck icon.
      3. The text below should change from “Chicken Breed” to “Duck Breed”
      4. Tap the select box adjacent to the Duck Breed label
      5. When the list of breeds comes up, click the “+” button to add a new breed. As long as the duck icon was selected on the previous screen, the new breed should be a duck.
      6. Fill in the details for the new breed, such as “Welsh Harlequin” or “Appleyard”
      7. When you click save, the new breed should appear in the list for creating a new bird

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