Animal feeding
Animal feeding
Animal feeding module is used to prepare meals for animals and to distribute this meals from stock to individual animal. In feeding module user can also add additional information like worker, used hours and used machine. Feeding is composed of three separated functionalities that have to be used in this order:
- Feed analysis: details about individual feed quality is inserted in administration panel. This information is used in feeding to determine needed fed mix ratio.
- Meal mixing: this module is used to prepare correct feed mixture.
- Feeding: module is used to distribute prepared meal mix to individual animal.
Steps to prepare meal
1. Feed has to be inserted to items and feed analysis in administration panel (see below for details).
2. Meal has to be mixed.
- User inserts meal ID, meal description and meal purpose.
- For milk user has to insert animal weight and qty milked. After that he just adds feed type and quantity to grid. Main parameter that he should follow is Milk yield from meal. Other values just show him if meal is balanced (see details below).
- For meat user chooses growth from drop-down list. For cattle selected value is recalculated on lifetime that is why different number is used. Parameters that he has to follow are difference in ME requirements and CP requirements. Other values just show him if meal is balanced (see details below).
3. User has a possibility to feed animals by locations or by feeding groups. He has to set this parameter in Editable items and document types (see details below). When he is creating feeding groups, He can also allocate created meal to individual meal which means that animals will be selected automatically in feeding (click here for more details about feeding groups).
4. In feeding user distributes feed to animals. He inserts start date and end date. If dates are different this means recording data for longer period. Task records performed task (has to be inserted in items). Meals per day is also used to determine feeding times per day (if 2 is selected, this multiplies meal qty by 2). Meal is selected in Meal ID. Pieces is calculated automatically based on start date, end date, meals per day and number of selected animals. In animals user selects animals that he would like to feed. If user added meal to feeding groups, animals are selected automatically. After that user has to select workers (individual worker with used time) and optionally selects resources (used machinery).
Details about meal preparation and distribution
Pantheon Farming enables preparation of two different meal types: user can prepare meals milking animals (cattle and sheep) and for animals with meat production (cattle, sheep, pigs). The main difference between the two is in step 2.
To prepare and distribute meal user has to follow steps in the same order as above.
1. Feed analysis
User first has to insert analysis information about individual feed. This information is inserted in administration panel for each individual feed. Each feed has to be inserted in items. Feeds are divided in concentrates and roughage. This information is important in step 2 especially for ruminants (cattle, sheep). Ruminants have to consume sufficient amount of roughage because they have specific gastrointestinal system.
Most important values in feed quality are shown below. NEL and DCP are only needed for milk production, ME only for meat production.
- for milk: DM (dry matter), CF (crude fiber), NEL (net energy for lactation), DCP (digestible crude protein), CP (crude protein).
- for meat: DM (dry matter), CF (crude fiber), ME (metabolizable energy), CP (crude protein).
- for pigs meat: DM (dry matter), ME (metabolizable energy), CP (crude protein), Lys (lysine), Met (Methionine), Cys (cysteine), Thr (Threonine), Trp (Tryptophan).
User can import some of the feeds from web service for each country. He can also import feed details from Excel file or can export existing data in Excel, change some of the values and import this file back again. This is especially useful in home produces feed where values can change frequently.
2. Meal mixing
Meal mixing is the most important part of feeding module. In this section user prepares an optimal meal mix based on requirements of individual animal and details of available feeds. Meal is always mixed for one animal in selected group.
Milk production (cattle, sheep)
Main factors of milk production are average weight of one animal in the group and desired milk yield. First information help us with calculation of intake capacity of animal and needed feed for maintenance of individual animal. Second information is used to calculate needed feed to achieve this milk yield. Variance between expected and actual milk yield is also calculated and is colored red, if it is negative.
Meal details tell us specifics about composed feed mix.
| Intake capacity |
Needed intake capacity needed for this meal mix (Actual) and maximum intake capacity of animal with inserted average weight (MAX). |
| Crude fiber requirements |
Achieved crude fiber intake by created meal. |
| Roughage intake capacity |
Intake capacity of roughage feeds in meal mix. |
| Ca:P ratio |
Informative information or ratio between calcium and phosphorus. |
| Na Qty |
Quantity of sodium intake. |
Milk production show information about produced milk with selected feed mix. This information is important as it shows us, how much milk is produced from energy components of feed (NEL) and how much from protein components (DCP). It also shows how much milk is produced from roughage and from total fodder. Differences between ratios have to be as minimal as possible because proteins represent additional costs and roughage can't achieve very high milk production.
| Milk (L) with roughage |
How much milk is produced from roughage. |
| Milk (L) with total fodder |
How much milk is produced from total fodder. Difference between this and value above shows how much milk is produced from concentrates (usually purchased). |
| Maintenance requirements |
How much NEL and DCP is needed for animal with inserted weight just to survive. |
| Requirements per liter milk |
how much NEL and DCP is needed to produce one liter of milk. Inserted values are standards but can be changed by user. |
When user would like to prepare meal for milk animals, he inserts new meal. He has to determine purpose of meal (in this case milk), insert average animal weight (per animal in group that will receive this meal) and insert milk yield/milking day (in liters, can be on two decimals). After that user selects individual feeds (have to be inserted in items and administration panel with details about quality) and sets expected quantity. All the values described above are calculated automatically, user just needs to follow them and adjust them by selecting different feed or adjusting quantity of feed. This meal is also inserted in items.
This module is also used for dry-off animals. In case of dry-off animals milk qty should be between 4 - 8 liters (normative values).
Meat production (cattle, sheep)
Main factors of meat production are average weight of one animal in the group and desired daily weight gain. First information help us with calculation of consummation ability of animal. Second information is used to determine needed feed to achieve desired daily growth.
When user selects expected growth (first column), calculated expected growth is actually used. Expected growth selected by user is growth for the whole period but values are recalculated on current animal growth. This value includes current animal weight and other normative values. Expected growth also give us expected crude protein value, metabolizable energy and possible intake capacity.
| Intake capacity |
Needed intake capacity needed for this meal mix (Actual). MIN value is determined based on selected growth and MAX based on average animal weight. |
| Crude fiber requirements |
Actual crude fiber values with MIN and MAX set by user. |
Meat production give us information about achieved values from selected feed mix. In this section crude protein and metabolizable energy are the most important values. Requirements means values that are needed to achieve selected daily weight gains. Actual are values, achieved with inserted meal mix. Differences (Diff.) should be minimal.
When user would like to prepare meal for milk animals, he inserts new meal. He has to determine purpose of meal (in this case meat), insert average animal weight (per animal in group that will receive this meal) and select expected daily weight gain. After that user selects individual feeds (have to be inserted in items and administration panel with details about quality) and sets expected quantity. All the values described above are calculated automatically, user just needs to follow them and adjust them by selecting different feed or adjusting quantity of feed. This meal is also inserted in items.
Meat production (pigs)
For pigs meal mixing is very similar as for cattle meat. Main factors are also average weight of animal and daily growth (with calculated daily growth). Other calculation are a bit different.
| Intake capacity |
Needed intake capacity needed for this meal mix (Actual). MIN value is determined based on selected growth and MAX based on average animal weight. |
| ME requirements |
Needed metabolizable energy requirements. MIN value is determined from average animal weight. |
| CP requirements |
Needed crude protein requirements. MIN value is determined from average animal weight. |
| Lys (g) requirements |
Needed Lys requirements. MIN value is determined from average animal weight. |
Values in meat production are differences between requirements and values, achieved with composed meal. This section includes the most important
3. Feeding
Feeding module is used after feed mix was prepared. It enables distribution of meal to individual animals. Animals in feeding can be sorted in two ways:
- By location: this shows animals by their location (group) that they are stationed in.
- By feeding group: this shows animals by feeding group that they are in.
How animals are show depends on setting in administration panel (Editable items and document types).
Click here to read more about feeding groups creation.
When user inserts new feeding, he sets task, start date and can also set end date. If these two dates are different, data will be inserted for the whole period between. To achieve this, he also needs to determine value meals per day. Dates between 1.12.2016 and 5.12.2016 with 2 meals per day means that software will distribute 10 meals per selected animal. This also affects stock so user needs enough feeds on stock to insert older data.
In the installment section user selects meal that has been prepared. Needed pieces are calculated automatically from values above and number of selected animals. Feed mix is visible below. This section also shows warehouse, stock and difference. User can also change warehouse in this section but he has to have enough stock in new warehouse.
In the animal section user can select animals that were fed with this meal (in By feeding group mode animals can be selected automatically). Information about feeding will also be added to animal record (more about feeding on animal record). How animals are shown depends on settings described above (By location / By feeding group).
In additional sections user selects workers and resources used in this feeding process. When user save this information two types of documents are created in the background:
Work order: this document creates meal from feeds based on meal mix. It also calculates own price of meal if costs are set on individual feed.
Internal document: this document distributes created meal to individual animals. Document will have the same number of positions as number od animals are selected and additional position for feeding. Number of meals depends from date span and number of meals per day.
How to add pasture in feed mix or track feed without stock
User can also add feeds without stock tracking or set warehouse with negative stock tracking. The first option is especially useful in case that user would like to add pasture in feed mix To be able to do this, user has to set different document type for pasture items, add this item for production document type, set different warehouse for this item, and set this warehouse as warehouse without stock tracking.
Click here for more info about document type settings.