Rotational grazing & pasture stocking-rate calculator
How many days will your pasture feed your herd? Plug in your acreage, the forage type, and the head count — we compute days-of-grazing remaining, a recommended move-by date, and whether you're under- or over-stocked. Standard 50% harvest efficiency assumed (i.e., half the forage is left as residual).
✅ Reasonable: 1.1 acres per AUE. Watch residual height — pull when forage hits ~3-4".
Farm Planner tracks each pasture's forage budget, automatically deducts daily grazing, and surfaces a "move-by" alert on the daily briefing before forage runs out. Free 30-day trial.
Start free 30-day trialThe math behind the number
days = (pasture_acres × forage_lbs_per_acre × harvest_efficiency) / (head × intake_lbs_per_day). Harvest efficiency is the fraction of standing forage your animals actually consume — the rest is trampled, dunged on, or left as residual to feed the regrowth. Continuous grazing wastes about 70% of the forage; rotational pulls 50%; intensively managed paddock rotation ("MIG", "mob grazing") hits 65-70%.
Typical forage yield by pasture type
| Forage type | Annual yield (lb DM/acre) |
|---|---|
| 🌱 Cool-season pasture, irrigated/well-watered | 6,000 lb |
| 🌿 Cool-season pasture, dryland (typical) | 3,500 lb |
| 🌾 Warm-season tame (Bermuda, Bahia) | 5,000 lb |
| 🌾 Native mixed prairie / range | 1,800 lb |
| 🏜️ Arid range (semi-desert, < 12" rain) | 600 lb |
Animal Unit Equivalents (AUE)
Range scientists often work in "Animal Units" — one AU is a 1,000-lb cow with calf consuming about 26 lb dry matter per day. This calculator uses species-specific intake values directly so you can plug in mixed-species herds (sheep + goat + cattle on the same pasture) without converting.
The big caveats
Pasture forage yield varies 2-4× across regions and years — a wet year doubles your numbers; a drought halves them. Treat the result as a planning baseline. The right way to dial it in is to weigh forage on a clipped quadrat (literally cut a square-foot patch and weigh it dry) once or twice per season. Penn State Extension's Pasture Resource Inventory walks through that.
Track every paddock without spreadsheets
Farm Planner ties each pasture to its grazing animals, deducts daily forage based on actual head, and surfaces a move-by-date on /today before the paddock is overgrazed. Free 30-day trial.
Sources: USDA-NRCS Pasture Condition Score guide, Penn State Extension grazing publications, Oklahoma State Beef Cattle Manual, "Greg Judy" / Allan Savory holistic-management forage budgets. Disclaimer: Forage yields vary 2-4× by region, year, and management. Calibrate against actual pasture clippings before betting a season on the result.