🌏 Data-driven grazing: how to use data to forage budget?

For many livestock producers, grass is a cornerstone resource for running a successful operation. In fact, many graziers recognise that effective land stewardship is vital to maintaining a productive and sustainable operation. This is where leveraging data can play a transformative role in grazing management.

In a recent webinar we hosted with Cibo Labs, Isobel Davis, and AgriWebb Implementation Specialist, and Alastair Rayner, General Manager – Extension and Operations at Cibo Labs, dove into the topic of data-driven grazing, walking attendees through the grazing-related data that can be showcased in AgriWebb and Cibo Labs and how it can be applied to the planning, implementation and analysis of a grazing plan.

Building on this conversation, this article focuses on the role of data in forage budgeting. To begin, let’s define forage budgeting and outline some key considerations.

What is forage budgeting?

Forage budgeting is the process of planning and managing forage resources to ensure there’s enough feed for livestock throughout the year. It involves estimating the quantity of available forage, calculating livestock feed requirements, and adjusting stocking rates or forage production as needed. This process can assist in preventing feed shortages, optimising available pasture use and reducing the costs associated with supplementary feeding. 

There are also a number of key considerations when budgeting feed for livestock, including:

1. Livestock nutritional needs: Calculate the specific feed requirements for different age groups and forecast these needs through key periods, such as calving.
2. Forage quality and availability: Assess the quality, quantity, and growth of your forage, accounting for seasonal fluctuations.
3. Stocking density and grazing management: Adjust the number of animals and rotation schedules to align with forage availability. This minimises overgrazing and land degradation, preserving pasture integrity.
4. Supplementary feed costs: Plan for additional feed requirements and associated costs, particularly during the winter feed gap leading into spring calving.
5. Climate and weather conditions: Monitor forecasts and historical weather patterns, as changes can significantly affect forage production.
6. Storage and preservation: Ensure adequate storage for harvested forage to prevent spoilage and nutrient loss, maintaining good feed availability during poor growing seasons.

What data points should be considered when feed budgeting?

Developing an effective feed budget requires the consideration of an array of factors to ensure optimal pasture use and livestock nutrition. A primary consideration is the paddock area and the stocking rate of livestock, both providing a foundation for estimating your available feed resources. It’s also essential to evaluate the initial pasture yield to establish a baseline. This yield assessment will serve as a reference point for you to understand potential feed supply over time.

Another important factor is the wastage and detachment rate, both influenced by your specific pasture mix and animal grazing behaviour. Accounting for this natural reduction in available feed ensures a more accurate estimate of what can realistically be used. Anticipated growth rates and targeted residual levels should also be considered, as they help in projecting total available grazing over the planned period.

Additionally, it’s important to understand the feed consumption needs of different livestock groups, particularly lactating animals. In doing so, you are allowing for more precise alignment of feed availability with demand. Comparing these requirements to projected pasture availability is crucial in planning a rotation strategy that balances the needs of each paddock, maximising pasture longevity and supporting herd health. By integrating these considerations, feed budgeting becomes a more reliable tool in managing both livestock nutrition and pasture sustainability.

What technology solutions can help with forage budgeting?

Services like Cibo Labs PastureKey and its integration with AgriWebb can allow the process of feed budgeting to be far simpler. PastureKey utilises the European Sentinel-2 satellite to measure total standing dry matter across your property approximately every 5 days. These insights are invaluable to producers, taking away the manual labour required to measure your pasture, giving you the peace of mind to accurately plan your future grazing. By receiving the information regularly, you are able to better understand the growth patterns of your forage and thereby, make more informed decisions about how much feed you will have available through the season.

So, how does AgriWebb help out?

AgriWebb is an essential tool for planning feed not just during calving periods, but throughout your entire grazing system year-round. It enables you to input key data points, such as assessed feed on offer, whether gathered manually using a pasture metre or through an integrated service like Cibo Labs. The regular updates on forage availability in your paddocks provide you with the foundational metric needed to create an effective feed budget.

By comparing your stocking rates and available feed, you can utilise the AgriWebb reports to understand how your paddocks are responding to different stocking rates. The DSE (LSE/ AE) load by paddock report is the perfect way to visualise how each paddock has been stocked over a period. By then comparing this with your FOO records, you can get an understanding of how that pasture mix is handling those corresponding stocking rates. This information may give you insights into whether paddocks should be stocked more lightly, or heavily or potentially give insights into incorporating an improved pasture mix. 

By allowing you to customise your data input and get report insights instantly, forage budgeting becomes a simpler task that does not require as many complex calculations. AgriWebb’s new grazing planner furthers this by incorporating all this data into a rotational planner and grazing chart. By visualising how much feed there is in each paddock, tied to its growth rates, you can simply plan out your rotation, automating the process and allowing you to know exactly what to expect before you start grazing. 

Ready to take your grazing to the next level? Download our guide, Profitable pastures: a guide to effective grazing management that’s designed to help you identify, implement and analyse the grazing systems that work best for your business.