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Animal Units (Mob)

Select an animal unit (e.g DSE, LSU, AE) and choose to calculate by body weight

Updated over a week ago

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What is an Animal Unit?

An animal unit rating is an animal’s energy demand relative to that of a 'standard animal'. Energy demand is largely a proxy for dry matter intake, i.e. how much pasture an animal eats.

Animal units are a way of comparing animals of different classes and species so they can be expressed in a standard format. The most common animal units are an AE (Adult Equivalent) for cattle and DSE (Dry Sheep Equivalent) for sheep.

Animal Units can be used for property valuations, business analysis, enterprise analysis, determining carrying capacity, feed budgeting, etc.

Therefore, they need to be calculated accurately and consistently updated as the growth of the animal changes across its lifetime.

(Cited from Bush Agribusiness - https://bushagri.com.au/animal-units)

Animal units are also primarily used to record your stocking rates and grazing load on pasture. These unit systems differ around the world. You can pick the most appropriate unit system for your property based on your current location or pick a different unit system.


Select an Animal Unit in Settings

The animal unit can be selected through farm settings on the Web App.

  1. On the Web App left hand navigation bar, click Account, then Farm Management.

  2. In the list of farms, click Actions, then Settings.

The following window will open with all the available settings. Select Animal units. You can now choose the desired unit for livestock on this farm.

Please note these settings are on a per farm basis, so if you have multiple farms setup within AgriWebb, you will need to adjust these settings on all farms to keep them uniform.


Making Changes to Animal Units

There are two ways to update animal units for mobs of livestock on the Mob Management platform, either automatically, based on body weight or manually via the animal unit record.

Calculate Animal Units by Body Weight

By default, animal units will need to be manually updated, however, you can turn on the auto update function via the settings in AgriWebb.


Choosing to calculate the animal unit by animal body weight automatically updates the animal unit value as the mob weights change. This ensures accurate data for grazing management, stock reconciliation and knowing total stocking rate on farm.

This setting will apply to all newly created mobs from the time you select it. Any mobs that already exist will remain at the animal unit currently set.

To ensure the animal unit is calculated by body weight for existing mobs you will need to create an animal unit record on them and choose the 'by weight' option. See the section below on how to create an animal unit record.


Update Animal Units with the Animal Unit Record

Mobile App

From the Map, select the mob marker and set the toggle to Mobs. Select the mob you'd like to create the record on.

Press & hold the animal unit box and it will open up the animal unit record to be adjusted.

dse record

You can update the DSE value for one mob or add in multiple mobs to do this in bulk.

dse value field in cattle management app

Web App

Select the Livestock tab, then Add Records. Choose the Animal unit record. It will display as the chosen unit (e.g AE or DSE).

dse records in cattle farm management software

Enter the desired fields into the form and press Save.


Available Animal Units by Country

AgriWebb's Mob Management subscriptions allows the selection between the following Animal Unit Systems for various countries:

Australia

  • Dry Sheep Equivalent (DSE)
    Based on a 2 year old 45 kg Merino sheep (wether or non-lactating, non-pregnant ewe) at maintenance.
    1 DSE = 7.6 MJ ME/day

*7.6 MJ ME/day = 1kg

  • Large Stock Unit (LSU)
    Based on a 400 kg steer at maintenance.
    1 LSU = 49.4 MJ ME/day

  • Livestock Unit (LSU)
    Based on a 425 kg feeder steer at maintenance.
    1 LSU = 52.4 MJ ME/day

  • Adult Equivalent (AE)
    Based on a 450 kg Bos Taurus steer at maintenance, 2.25 years of age, and walking 7 km each day.
    1 AE = 72.6 MJ ME/day

New Zealand

  • Stock Units (SU)
    The base ewe was assumed to weigh 55 kg (pre-mating), wean one lamb at 25 kg and consume 550 kg DM per annum.
    1 SU = 10.5 MJ ME/day

South Africa

  • Large Stock Unit (LSU)
    An ox with a weight of 450kg and a weight gain of 500g per day on grass pasture with a mean Digestible Energy (DE) concentration of 55%.
    1 LSU = 75.0 MJ ME/day

  • Small Stock Unit (SSU)
    The definition of the SSU is relative to the South African LSU where 1 LSU = 6 Small Stock Units.
    1 SSU = 12.5 MJ ME/day

United Kingdom

  • Livestock Units (LSU)
    Based on a 650 kg dairy cow producing 3000 kg of milk annually.
    1 LSU = 124.9 MJ ME/day

United States

  • Animal Units (AU)
    The animal unit is defined as one mature 1,000 pound cow and her suckling calf. It is assumed that such a cow nursing her calf will consume 26 pounds of dry matter (DM) of forage per day (20 lbs for the cow and 6 lbs for the calf).
    1 AU = 89.6 MJ ME/day


Sources for definitions 

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