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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.
On the Web App left hand navigation bar, click Account, then Farm Management.
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.
You can update the DSE value for one mob or add in multiple mobs to do this in bulk.
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).
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
Australia
New Zealand
South Africa
United Kingdom
USA