Grazing Demands Reports

Ranch Vision’s Grazing Demand reports quantify the grazing demands placed on the ranch under the current management plan. Grazing demand is expressed in Grazing Unit Months (GUMs), a measure based on Net Energy (NE) intake.

Quantifying grazing demand can otherwise be challenging, particularly when multiple species, livestock classes, and enterprises are competing for the same forage resource. These reports not only show how much of the ranch’s grazing resource is required, but also how that resource is being allocated among species, livestock classes, and enterprises.

Ranch Vision incorporates established animal-nutrition research along with the inputs for your ranch to calculate livestock Net Energy demands. These demands are expressed in Grazing Unit Months (GUMs). One GUM equals 304.375 megacalories (Mcal), the amount of forage needed to provide 10 Mcal of Net Energy per day for one-twelfth of a year. Unlike a traditional Animal Unit Month (AUM), GUMs accommodate differences in species, body weight, and stage of production.

Because grazing is one of the ranch’s most important resources, these reports help quantify the grazing demands placed on the ranch under the current management plan and show how that resource is being allocated. Understanding this allocation provides an important basis for comparing alternative grazing enterprises and evaluating how changes to the management plan may affect the use of available forage.

Annual Grazing Demands

The Annual Grazing Demands report projects the total grazing demand placed on the ranch during each of the next five years. Values are expressed in Grazing Unit Months (GUMs) consumed, a measure based on Net Energy (NE) intake.

The chart shows projected GUM consumption by species and in total.

How to use it: Use this report to understand total projected forage use, how grazing demand changes over time, and how the ranch's grazing resource is allocated among cattle, sheep, and goats. GUMs provide a common, nutrition-based baseline for evaluating grazing management and profitability.

Detailed Grazing Demands

The Detailed Grazing Demands reports provide class-level breakdowns of projected cattle, sheep, and goat grazing demand for each of the next five years. Values are expressed in Grazing Unit Months (GUMs), Ranch Vision's nutrition-based measure of grazing demand described above.

How to use it: Use these reports to see which livestock classes and enterprises are consuming the ranch's grazing resource, identify what is driving changes in total grazing demand, and compare alternative grazing enterprises based on the forage resource they require. GUMs provide a common, nutrition-based baseline for evaluating grazing management and profitability.