Quote:
Originally Posted by tshiggins
Interesting, and it definitely indicates the primary form of livestock in your area.
<snip>
|
I feel an urge to defend NZ and say it's not all sheep farming, but seeing as I'm a sheep and beef farmer I havn't really got a leg to stand on.
Stock units are almost outdated as the primary form of measurement, but they are useful for shorthand and simplified purposes. As you say the weight of feed in a given area is more accurate, It's Kgs of dry matter per hectare here. (Unless you use metabolic calculations).
Though for these examples I tend to favour stock units because they are simple, they line up with what's already published under gurps and I know enough to adjust the system as required.
The Feed budgets that I use professionally factor "when" into the equation as well as the quality of the pasture. As a for instance I'm just getting ready to add urea to my lambing paddocks. The calculation to determine the economic value of the endeavour involved how much nitrogen* was in the urea, how much more pasture that would grow and of what type, when the lambs would get the most benefit from it, how the energy content would alter their weight gain, when they would be ready to finish and what they would probably get in $ per kg when they finished. Then compare that to interest rates and determine what's the best spend.......
(Summary, when the lambs are born they will get more soft grass at the height they prefer)
Of course the measurement techniques have changed to, I use a sward stick but there are other options, such as
trailers and drones. Unless you want the automation on the animal side instead, then you can put in GPS, RFID ear tags that have among other things an accelerometer in them that track how often each animal takes a bite to eat. (This would cost me about $44,000 to do my cattle).
This data would be processed in something like
Overseer which may soon become standard as nitrogen calculations are soon to be mandatory.
* as well as calculations around total nitrogen, which factors in soil type, soil microbes, animal type and ground cover to ensure I don't have excess nitrogen run off.