Feed, grass and fencing, planned in advance
Winter feed is the biggest cost on most small farms, and it's the easiest one to get wrong. Livestock eat roughly 2 to 3% of their body weight in hay a day, so a 1,200 lb cow eats about 30 lb and a 1,000 lb horse about 20 lb. Feeding on bare ground wastes a quarter of that; a decent feeder cuts waste to around 5 to 15%.
Grass is the cheaper feed, and stocking rate decides whether you keep it. The standard approach counts animal units: one 1,000 lb cow eats about 780 lb of forage dry matter a month, and you plan to graze only about half of the season's growth so the pasture recovers. Overgraze once and you buy hay for two seasons.
Fencing is simple arithmetic once you know the post spacing: 10 to 16 feet for barbed and woven wire, 30 to 50 feet for high-tensile electric, which is why electric costs less per mile. And when you mix your own feed, the Pearson square gets you to a target protein with two ingredients and no guesswork.
Common questions
How much hay do I need for winter?
Multiply body weight by 2–3%, then by the number of feeding days, then add 10–20% for waste. The hay calculator does it for a mixed herd.
How many acres does a cow need?
On good pasture often 1.5–3 acres for a grazing season; on dry rangeland it can be 20 acres or more. Local forage yield decides it.
What is the Pearson square used for?
Mixing two feeds to hit one target nutrient, usually crude protein. The target has to sit between the two feeds.