How to Set Up Plug Tracking
Plug tracking captures evidence of mating — typically a vaginal plug observed in the morning — and anchors the embryonic day (E-Day) clock at E0.5 from that observation date. Moustra has a dedicated Plug Events page where each event ties to a specific mating, carries an outcome (Pregnant, Not Pregnant, or Pending), and lets you set a target harvest E-Day (e.g. E13.5). The system then computes the harvest calendar date for you, so timed-mating workflows stay on schedule without manual day counting.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Open the Plug Events page
Click Plug Events in the navigation menu. This page lists every plug event in your colony with its mating, observation date, outcome, and computed harvest date.
Start a new plug event
Click Add plug event at the top of the page to open the new plug event form.
Select the mating
In the Mating field, choose the active mating that produced the plug. Filters help you narrow by male, female, or strain when you have many ongoing matings.
Pro Tip
Only matings that are still active appear in the picker, so confirm the pairing has not been ended before recording the plug.
Enter the plug observation date
Set Plug date to the morning the plug was observed. Moustra anchors this date as E0.5, which becomes the reference point for every downstream embryonic day calculation.
Set a target harvest E-Day
Enter the Target Harvest E-Day for your experiment, for example E13.5 for mid-gestation embryo collection. Moustra computes the calendar harvest date automatically from the plug date.
Pro Tip
Leave this blank if you are only confirming pregnancy and have not yet committed to a harvest timepoint — you can edit it later.
Save and update the outcome later
Click Save to record the plug event. The outcome starts as Pending; return to the event once pregnancy is confirmed or ruled out and update it to Pregnant or Not Pregnant so your colony stats stay accurate.