Your animal will be in Unknown status when there is no initial Source to set the animal's status. It is important to correct this issue as the animal will not appear in your status-based reports when its status is Unknown. Secondly, you will not be able to enter any "follow-up" statuses, such as Sold or Deceased.

You'll know if you have animals in this state by the presence of the message "Your herd has animals that are in an Unknown status." at the top of your herd Dashboard. Click on that message and you'll see the animals in Unknown Status report; a second way to identify an animal in unknown status is the presence of a yellow warning triangle icon next to their name in the scrolling herd list.

While the selection of a Source is a requirement for the Add Animal form, an animal status can get into the Unknown status a couple of ways: The most common way is the user deletes all of the status entries associated with an animal after it has been added and does not add a new Source entry. Very rarely it can be caused by an internet glitch right at the time the Add Animal form is being submitted, but we've only seen this happen a handful of times.

In either case, to correct the issue:

1. Click on the "Change Status" button on the Unknown Status report, or select the animal from the scrolling herd list and go to their Status page and click the "Change Status" button.
2. Add the proper Source entry for the animal (and any following Status changes). 

Once you've made these updates your animal will start displaying in your reports as appropriate.