Matching stocking rates with available forage ensures animals always have sufficient feed. This minimises the impact of dry years and drought feeding costs. Most importantly, it prevents overgrazing and helps maintain land condition.
Conversely, in good years stocking rates can be adjusted upwards to increase production without damaging pastures. This maximises animal production and maintains land condition in our variable rainfall environment.
Creating a forage budget
To create a forage budget, you need to know the following:
- paddock size
- pasture yield
- percent unpalatable pasture (undesirable species and/or plant parts, weeds etc.)
- pasture utilization rate (from land type sheets in Futurebeef)
- length of grazing period (e.g. the dry season)
- daily consumption per Adult Equivalent (AEs)
- usable paddock area
- expected start of the next wet season plus a buffer of one to two months.
Forage budgeting calculations take the forage available to the animal and subtract the desired residual amount after grazing to give the total useful available pasture. This figure is used to determine how many animals can run in a paddock for a certain period of time. The time can be manipulated either way (e.g. more cattle for a shorter time or a sustainable number for the whole dry season).
Calculations can be complex and will be detrimental to land condition and production if too optimistic. It is therefore recommended to seek assistance from an extension officer.
Alternatively:
- App based resources, such as the Stocktake GLM App, are available to help create a forage budget.
- Attend a forage budgeting field day or Stocktake GLM course.
- Attend a MLA Grazing Land Management EDGE (GLM) workshop. This will provide you with the information and training needed to do calculations yourself.
More information
For more information contact your local extension officer.
Tools and resources to assist forage budgeting
- Stocktake GLM is a decision support app that allows users to calculate forage budgets and monitor land condition and stock numbers.
- Pasture growth alerts
- Historical rainfall data
- Assessing paddock ground cover
- Grazing Land Management (GLM) EDGE course
- The Ecograze project: developing guidelines to better manage grazing country, Ash et al (2001) CSIRO, Townsville, 44 p.
The ‘usual’ start of the wet season growth is taken as the date when there is >75 % probability of getting more than 50 mm of rain in two days (i.e. later than the ‘green date’ date’). Always add a buffer of at least a month in case of a late start.
Findings from the Wambiana grazing trial
Matching stocking rates with available forage ensures animals always have sufficient feed. This minimises the impact of dry years and drought feeding costs. Most importantly, it prevents overgrazing and reduces the impact of drought on land condition.
Conversely, in good years stocking rates can be adjusted upwards to increase production without damaging pastures. This maximises animal production and productivity while maintaining land condition in our variable rainfall environment.
Key messages
- When stocking rates are not matched with available forage, overgrazing occurs and land condition declines.
- Failure to reduce stocking rates in dry years results in reduced animal production and pasture degradation.
- Stocking rate adjustment point should be around the end of the wet season.
- Stocking rates are usually set based on a forage budget.
In this article, topics discussed include:
Indicators that the stocking rate isn’t right
Research findings from Wambiana
When to adjust
How to adjust
Calculating stocking rates
Creating a forage budget
More information
