Figure 1 shows a Diet (ME source) report for a hypothetical dairy farm that includes beef/dairy grazers. The report is showing that the majority of the dairy herd’s diet is pasture (73%, ranging from 56.3%-98.7% of the monthly diet). Notably, in the month of June and July, pasture is blank. This is indicating that the dairy herd is grazed on crops (99.4% and 0.6% coming from Farm Supplements)
Figure 1: Diet (ME source) report based on % requirement
The final row in the report shows the total of Animal ME requirements. In this example, 100% is reported for all of the month’s animals are on farm. This occurs because animal ME intake not derived from supplements and crops is assumed to be from grazed pasture. However, when this is not the case, the reported value may differ.
An Animal ME requirements value greater than 100% indicates that supplements and/or crops consumed by animals are in excess of their estimated requirements. Conversely, a value less than 100% suggests that supplements and/or crops consumed by animals are inadequate to meet their estimated requirements while animals do not have access to pastoral blocks. A buffer of about 20% is in place when matching intake to feed requirements. Therefore, the model will provide reports when the feed supply is within 20% of animal requirements. Hence, scenario and blocks reports are available for this hypothetical dairy farm.