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This calculator allows users to consider corn yield as criteria for calculating the worth
of cornstalks using formulas from the article "A Review of Corn Stalk Grazing on Animal
Performance and Crop Yield" that is found in the 2004 Nebraska Beef Report and information
from Aaron Stalker.
There is a number of ways this tool can be used:
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To estimat acres needed, using the number and size of the animals, the length of time
in days animals will be grazed on the corn stalks, and the corn yield.
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To estimate the number of animals given their size, number of available acres, number
of days you expect to graze, and the corn yield.
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To estimate the number of days to graze, given size and number of animals, available
acres, and corn yield per acre.
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To establish cost per animal daily and over the whole grazing period.
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To estimate total cost for all animals.
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To estimate nutrient cost.
This calculator also figures and includes cattle transportation costs as well as care and
supervision costs in the totals near the bottom of the spreadsheet. If producers have
a cost per head per day target it may be necessary to adjust the cost per acre. The
included example shows that cattle transportation costs are nearly as much as the cost
for renting the corn stalks. Part of the reason the transportation costs in the example
are so high is because it includes 100 head of cattle with 30 animals per load. That
means that this calculator uses four loads to calculate the transportations costs. The
total transportation cost does not become less until the total number of cattle is less
than 91 head so they will fit on three loads.
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