Feed Budgeting resources (texts and spreadsheets)
Pasture Feed Budgeting Essentials text | $59 | |
|---|---|---|
Pasture feed budgeting and paddock records/feed wedge spreadsheets | $49 | |
For a 20% saving purchase both for just | $86 |
Learn more about the Pasture Feed Budgeting Essentials booklets
Learn more about the suite of Pasture feed budgeting spreadsheets
Pasture Feed Budgeting Essentials booklets
A practical guide to pasture feed budgeting for managers of pasture and grazing livestock
Compiled and written by Roger Martyn, owner of Grazetech and a former farm consultant with more than 20 years' experience specialising in pasture-based farm consulting and pasture measurement technology.
Pasture Feed Budgeting Essentials provides a practical, structured introduction to understanding pasture feed supply, forecasting future availability and making better-informed grazing management decisions.
The material is presented in two complementary PDF booklets, designed to help readers learn the essentials without being overwhelmed by detail, while providing opportunities to explore the subject in greater depth. Both booklets are downloadable PDFs that you can save to your computers or print as you wish.
Booklet One: Pasture Feed Budgeting — Required Reading
This 152-page booklet, including appendices, provides a straightforward, structured and deliberately concise introduction to pasture feed budgeting. It focuses on the essential principles and practical steps involved in full forecast pasture feed budgeting. Worked examples in every chapter demonstrate how the principles are applied, while a short quiz at the end of each chapter helps reinforce understanding.
Booklet Two: Pasture Feed Budgeting Essentials — Background Reading
This 162-page companion booklet, including the same appendices, provides a deeper exploration of selected aspects of pasture feed budgeting, ruminant nutrition, plant biology and pasture management. Its six chapters examine the underlying principles and finer points in greater detail, allowing readers to extend their understanding as their interest and needs dictate.
Together, the two booklets provide a learning resource that combines a clear, practical introduction with the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the science and principles underpinning effective pasture feed budgeting.
Table of Contents Booklet one 'Pasture Feed Budgeting — Required Reading'
Introduction
Chapter 1: Pasture Feed Budgeting — What Is It and Why Do We Do It?
Chapter 2: (Pasture) Dry Matter — What It Is and How to use it
Chapter 3: Pasture DM Feed Requirements of Grazing Animals
Chapter 4: Pasture Area — Simple Ways to Calculate It
Chapter 5: Pasture Growth Rates — How to Calculate and Record
Chapter 6: Pasture Allocation — The How-To's.
Chapter 7: Pasture Feed Wedges
Chapter 8: What Is an "Average Farm Cover"? How Can We Use AFC Data?
Chapter 9: Calculating Grazing Rotation Lengths
Chapter 10: Pasture Surpluses and Deficits — Identifying and Dealing with them.
Chapter 11:Accounting for Feed Wastage in Pasture Budgeting
Chapter 12: Forecast Feed Budgeting for Pastures
Chapter 13: Pasture Measurement.
Chapter 14: Record Keeping — What to Record and When
Further Reading: The Background Reading Companion
Glossary of Terms
List of Abbreviations
List of Appendices
Appendix 1 - Average daily pasture growth rates - New Zealand- source Beef & Lamb New Zealand
Appendix 2 - Average daily pasture growth rates - New Zealand- source NZ Dairy
Appendix 3 - Average daily pasture growth rates Australia - Source PROGRAZE®
Appendix 4 - Tasmanian monthly growth rates DAIRY
Appendix 5 - Feed-stuff values – DM%, ME, CP, NDF, SSS, Starch, Fat
Appendix 6 - feed-stuffs - DM% and ME only
Appendix 7 - Estimated Yields of Forage Crops
Appendix 8 - Wet & dry weights for common dimension forms of Hay and Silage
Appendix 9 - Wastage estimates of some commonly fed supplements
Appendix 10 - A Cut Weigh and Dry (CWD) protocol for estimation of pasture dry matter per hectare (kgDM/ha)
Appendix 11 - Pasture Covers photo gallery
Appendix 12 - Total daily dry matter requirements lactating cows (kgDM/cow/day)
Appendix 13 - Annual pasture Dry Matter requirements for lactating Dairy cows
Appendix 14 - Daily energy requirements of lactating dairy cows for different activities.
Appendix 15 - Feed requirements for a Dry dairy cow - maintenance & pregnancy demand
Appendix 16 - Dairy Young Stock Feeding Requirements
Appendix 17 - Daily nutrient requirements of large breed cows
Appendix 18 - Metabolisable energy requirements (MJ/day) of cattle for maintenance and growth
Appendix 19 - kgDM requirements for the maintenance and live-weight gain of mature ewes
Appendix 20 - Feeding Requirements for Deer
Appendix 21 - New Zealand Stock Unit System
Appendix 22 - The Australian Stock Unit System
Appendix 23 - Further reading and feed-budgeting resources
Table of Contents Booklet two 'Pasture Feed Budgeting — Background Reading'
Glossary of Terms
List of
Abbreviations
Chapter 1 Photosynthesis – the source of all biological life
Chapter 2 Animal Nutrition
Chapter 3 The Digestive System of Ruminants and other Grazing Animals
Chapter 4 The 'two and a half leaf 'approach to pasture assessment, management and feed budgeting
Chapter 5 Stocking rate – how to determine and use
Chapter 6 Planned (Holistic) Grazing-What is it?
Appendices (the same appendices as for Booklet 1 - required reading)ed budgeting speadsheets for pastures -
Pasture Feed budgeting Spreadsheets
Over the years, there have been many attempts to develop dedicated pasture feed-budgeting software. Some have been outstanding, yet many have sadly disappeared. Spreadsheet-based tools have also been developed, but relatively few have successfully combined ease of use with the functionality needed to deliver meaningful results.
This suite of Grazetech Pasture Feed Budgeting Spreadsheets is the culmination of many years of practical experience and refinement. It aims to strike that important balance between simplicity, user-friendliness and powerful outcomes, providing practical tools for pasture managers who want to make better-informed feed management decisions without needing to be spreadsheet experts.
Spreadsheet 1: Forecast Pasture Feed Budget
This Excel-compatible spreadsheet provides a rolling forecast feed budget for a pasture-based farm, enabling feed supply and demand to be planned and tracked month by month across a full season.
Taking a deliberately straightforward approach, the spreadsheet uses 12 linked Period sheets, each covering one budgeting interval. You can enter or adjust period lenght, pasture growth rates, livestock numbers, feed demand and supplement use, and the spreadsheet calculates feed demand, pasture utilisation and forecast Average Farm Cover (AFC) against your target.
Closing figures from each period automatically become the opening figures for the next, linking the entire season into one continuous forecast.
This makes it easy to explore what-if scenarios, such as changing livestock numbers or feeding levels, or closing paddocks to accumulate pasture for later use. You can see how these decisions affect the forecast and thus leverage the full power of forecast pasture feed budgeting in farm management decision making.
The first few periods are pre-populated with dairy livestock examples, which can readily be modified for beef, sheep and other grazing enterprises.
Designed to complement Pasture Feed Budgeting Essentials booklets, the spreadsheet follows the same units and approach to pasture feed budgeting as taken in the booklets, helping you put the principles into practice.
Fully editable: The spreadsheet is not password-protected, allowing you to inspect, modify and adapt it to suit your needs.
Screenshot of the Pasture forecast feed budget speadsheet
Spreadsheet 2: Paddock Records, Feed Wedge and Average Farm Cover Generator
This Excel-compatible spreadsheet provides a practical way to record and analyse historically valuable pasture dry matter (DM) cover record across paddocks and over time.
Enter paddock pasture cover measurements by date, and the spreadsheet helps you maintain paddock records and calculate average daily pasture growth rates for individual paddocks and the farm as a whole.
It also generates pasture feed wedges in both tabular and graphical formats, making it easier to assess the distribution of pasture cover across the farm and decide which paddocks should be grazed when.
Importantly, the spreadsheet generates Average Farm Cover (AFC) records and average daily pasture growth rates — two key inputs required by the Forecast Pasture Feed Budget spreadsheet. Together, these tools connect pasture measurement and record-keeping with forward planning, enabling measured pasture information to inform feed-budgeting decisions.
Fully editable: The spreadsheet is not password-protected, allowing you to inspect, modify and adapt it to suit your needs.
Screenshot of the Paddock Records, Feed Wedge and Average Farm Cover generator spreadsheet