Skip to content
English
More support Sign in
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

Cibo Labs Forage Budget Calculator – User Guide

This tool helps you calculate how many grazing days are available on your farm and/or in your paddocks, based on feed supply, animal demand, and pasture growth or to establish your carrying capacity of paddocks or farm basis, from the available feed supply. It’s designed to support grazing decisions and help avoid feed shortages.

Welcome to the Cibo Labs Forage Budget Calculator.

Why Forage Budgeting Matters

Using PastureKey for Objective Forage Estimate

Digital Help Panel-Step by Step Guide

Calculator Options

1. How many stock can I carry within a period?

2. How many grazing days available for my stock?

Features:

1. Select Paddocks

2. Navigation & Understand the Layout

3. Calculator Input Definitions

4. Other Navigation tools

Why Using forage budget calculator is a No-brianer!

 

Why Forage Budgeting Matters

Effective forage budgeting is critical to sustainable grazing management. It allows producers to understand how much feed is available, match animal demand with supply, and avoid situations where ground cover is compromised or livestock performance is limited. Without a clear understanding of feed availability, grazing decisions can be reactive rather than proactive—leading to overgrazing, reduced pasture recovery, and increased reliance on supplementary feeding.

Using PastureKey for Objective Forage Estimates

The Cibo Labs PastureKey service provides producers with access to accurate, reliable, and objective data to support pasture and grazing management. By combining satellite imagery with advanced analytics, PastureKey offers up-to-date assessments of pasture biomass, growth rates, and ground cover at a 10m2 resolution. This ensures your forage budget starts from the best available estimate of current conditions—removing the guesswork from grazing decisions.

 

Digital Help Panel- Step-by-Step Guide

Select the Forage Budget Calculator Icon from the dashboard or from within the maps section. The icon is situated on the tool bar at the bottom of the page.

Select the type of calculator you wish to use that represents your business. 

Select  from Calculators:


1. How many stock can I carry within a period? or 

2. How many grazing days available for my stock?

 

Click to highlight the calculator you wish to run.

Complete the sections for each Calculator output to be generated. (Note: areas not required are greyed out).

Calculator Options: 

  1. How many stock can I carry within a period?

  • Choose your Start and End date to define your period of interest.
  • Choose the following metrics:

    - Your anticipated pasture growth (kg/ha)
    - The average feed demand (kg/day/head) for your livestock in your enterprise
    - Enter in your default unusable (%) estimate of what forage within your pasture composition is unusable for livestock digestion.
    - Enter in  you default unpalatable 3Ps (%) - estimating in your pasture composition what percentage of the 3 P pasture species, is unpalatable.
    - Enter in you pasture "Minimum Residual" (kg/ha)
    - Enter in your default wastage (%)
    - Default utilisation Rate (%)
  • Choose your calculator outcome:
    A. Cattle Systems (AE) - this calculator reports data based on animal equivalent's (AE). This is particularly useful for northern cattle producers operations.

           B. Mixed Systems (DSE)- this calculator reports data based on Dry Sheep Equivalent                   (DSE) rating comparisons. This calculator can be used for sheep, goats, cattle and other             types of livestock across eastern Australia and particularly NSW, VIC, TAS, SA and WA.

  • Choose your "Calculator Level" of analysis
  1. Paddock Level Calculator - this calculator tool analyses the system (AE or DSE) chosen at each paddock level.
Farm Level Calculator -this calculator tool analyses the system (AE or DSE) chosen at a whole farm level.
Select "Go" to enter into the Forage budget calculator tool.

Example of Forage Budget Calculator- Carrying capacity, Paddock scale, AE calculations.


2. How many grazing days available for my stock?


  •    Choose the following metrics:

           - your anticipated pasture growth (kg/ha)
           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- The average feed demand (kg/day/head) for your livestock in your enterprise
           - Enter in your default unusable (%) estimate of what forage within your                                            pasture composition is unusable for livestock digestion.
           - Enter in  you default unpalatable 3Ps (%)

           - Estimating in your pasture composition  what percentage of the 3 P pasture                                  species, is unpalatable.
           - Enter in you pasture "Minimum Residual" (kg/ha)
           - Enter in your default wastage (%)

  • Choose your calculator outcome:

        A. Cattle Systems (AE) - this calculator reports data based on animal equivalent's (AE).                This is particularly useful for northern cattle producers operations.

        B. Mixed Systems (DSE) - this calculator reports data based on Dry Sheep Equivalent                  (DSE) rating comparisons. This calculator can be used for sheep, goats, cattle and                        other types of livestock across eastern Australia and particularly NSW, VIC, TAS, SA                       and WA.

  • Choose your "Calculator Level" of analysis
  1. Paddock Level Calculator - this calculator tool analyses the system (AE or DSE) chosen at each paddock level.
  2. Farm Level Calculator - this calculator tool analyses the system (AE or DSE) chosen at a whole farm level.
  • Select "Go" to enter into the Forage budget calculator tool.

An example of the grazing day forage budget calculator - without livestock inputs present at paddock, DSE enterprise outputs.

Features:

1. Select Paddocks (Paddock-level ONLY)

Tick the checkboxes next to the paddocks you want to include in your forage budget. Only the selected paddocks will contribute to your 'whole-farm' feed budget calculation.

 

2. Navigation & Populating the Data

  • Blue columns = not editable/auto-calculated - fields populated with PastureKey Data.
  • White columns = This information auto-populates from the information from the initial pop up window information you have inserted. White columns are editable from within the spreadsheet for your pastures metric information and when you request a analysis of grazing days calculator. You will need to input your livestock numbers per paddock or per farm.

  • Note- for the "grazing days" calculator- in the forage budget you will need to input your paddock/ farm livestock numbers, to generate results after you enter the forage budget calculator spreadsheet.

Start at the left of the table and work across each row, if you wish to adjust any of your inputs in the white columns in either calculator.

3. Calculator Input Definitions

3.1. Anticipated Pasture Growth (Kg/Ha) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- input your Anticipated Pasture Growth (kg/HA) - this is the total amount of pasture growth anticipated for the budget period (start-date to end-date).

3.2. Average Feed Demand (Kg/day/head)

- Input your livestock's classes required average daily feed demand requirements (also called Average feed intake). Consider your livestock's growth, age, breed, pregnancy & lactation status and your growth and production targets. 

3.3. Default Unusable (%)

- The expected percentage of pasture that is unpalatable or due to pasture condition is rank or detached that livestock will avoid consuming; this may include weeds, dead or unpalatable or un-grazable species .

3.4. Default Unpalatable (%)

- The estimated percentage of normally Palatable, Perennial and Productive (3P) pasture that isn’t palatable anymore.

3.5. Minimum Residual

-  the amount of dry matter you want to leave behind in the paddock after grazing. This is measured in Kg/Ha. When establishing your value consider the to following aspects of your landscape and production:

  • Maintain ground cover
  • Prevent soil erosion
  • Enable faster regrowth of Pasture
  • Ensure livestock can continue to access feed

3.6. Default Wastage (%)

- expected percentage of pasture biomass not accessible due to stocking density, with trampling, fouling and dung contamination. Typical wastage 20%, Wet & Boggy Conditions up to 45%.

3.7. Default Utilisation Rate (%)

- Is the anticipated intake percentage for your type a pasture composition that stock will consume.

Other navigation tools:

There are three additional functions at the bottom of the calculators.

Load from Excel - Allows the user to load data for inputs of columns from a excel data set.

Save to Excel - Allows the user to save the calculator outputs to excel.

Reset table data - Resets the calculator.

Why using the Forage Budget Calculator is a No-brainer!

Knowing how many available grazing days you have helps you:

  • Plan ahead - scheduling your next livestock movements ahead of time
  • Achieve sustainability goals - avoid overgrazing and bare paddocks
  • Decrease costs of feed purchasing - Prevent critical feed shortages

Make proactive decisions before your biomass levels fall below sustainable limits and costly intervention is required. 

 

For further information and support to use the forage base calculator tools. Please contact support@cibolabs.com.au