BEEF CATTLE RATION OPTIMIZER · RUNS IN YOUR BROWSER · NOTHING UPLOADED

What is the cheapest ration that still meets your cattle's needs?

List the feeds you can buy with a price per ton and their nutrient content, choose the animal class, and a linear-programming solver finds the lowest-cost pounds per head per day that meet dry matter intake, protein, energy, calcium, phosphorus and forage needs. It also totals the herd cost and the tons to buy, and tells you the price at which an unused feed would start to pay.

The starter list uses approximate book values and example prices: edit every price, and use your own forage test. New to this? Read how to formulate a low-cost cattle ration, with a worked example.

1. Feeds

2. Animal and requirements

3. Herd

Add your feeds and requirements, then click Find the cheapest ration.

How it works

Model: choose pounds as-fed x of each feed per head per day to minimise the sum of price times pounds, subject to dry matter intake landing on your target (within the tolerance), protein, TDN, calcium and phosphorus each meeting their share of the dry matter, a minimum forage share, a Ca:P ratio range, and each feed staying under its maximum. That is a linear program, solved with a two-phase simplex that cannot cycle.

What each requirement costs: it re-solves with one requirement raised (one point of protein or TDN, ten points of forage) and reports the extra cost. When a feed would pay: it lowers an unused feed's price by bisection until the cheapest ration starts to use it.

Not modelled: trace minerals, vitamins, ionophores, urea and other non-protein nitrogen limits, mycotoxins, fibre and starch limits beyond the forage share, moisture changes, water, weather, pack or truckload sizes, and storage and handling cost. The starter requirements are rounded rules of thumb, not a full NRC run. Unverified against real herds: checked against exhaustive search on a small feed list, against random rations, and by an independent feasibility check on every result.

Common questions

How do I formulate the cheapest beef cattle ration that still meets protein and energy needs?

List every feed you can buy with its price per ton, dry matter and nutrient content, pick the animal class, and the optimizer finds the pounds of each feed per head per day with the lowest cost that meets dry matter intake, crude protein, TDN, calcium, phosphorus, the Ca:P ratio and a minimum forage share. It solves a linear program, the classic least-cost ration problem.

Are the feed values and requirements accurate?

The starter feeds carry approximate book values and example prices, and the class presets are rounded rules of thumb for a typical animal. Replace the prices with your quotes, replace the nutrient values with your own forage test results, and replace the requirements with your nutritionist's or extension office's numbers. The result is only as good as the numbers you put in.

Why does it want so much of one cheap feed?

A cost minimiser has no judgment about palatability or logistics. If corn silage is the cheapest way to meet energy it will use as much as you allow. Set a maximum pounds per day on any feed, delete feeds you cannot get, and rerun to see what variety or practicality costs.

What does 'a feed would enter the ration below this price' mean?

For each feed the optimizer left out, it lowers that feed's price until the cheapest ration starts to use it. That tells you what price to ask for, or when a quote becomes worth taking.

What do the extra-cost lines mean?

Each shows how much more the cheapest ration costs per head per day if a requirement is raised by one point, such as one percentage point of crude protein. A line that adds nothing is not limiting on this feed list.

Is this veterinary or nutrition advice?

No. It does arithmetic on the numbers you give it. It does not model trace minerals, vitamins, ionophores, urea or other non-protein nitrogen limits, mycotoxins, water, weather or animal health. Use a nutritionist, veterinarian or your extension service before you change a ration.

Is my feed list uploaded or stored?

No. Everything runs in your browser, nothing is sent to a server, there are no accounts, and nothing is saved when you close the page. Download the ration as a CSV to keep it.