Evaluate and improve feed health (FHE)
Feed health is an important component in keeping your animals healthy. That is why we have integrated a feed health evaluation (FHE) into fodjan, which helps you to evaluate your rations precisely in this respect and to find the adjusting screws for more feed health. In fodjan Pro in particular, you will always find the small “speedometers” and colour-coded points that refer to the feed health assessment.
Feed health “speedometer” in the ration view
Feed health bars and points in the feed health tab of a ration or also on the ration overview
How does feed health evaluation affect other fodjan functions?
This FHE thus also feeds, for example, the ration suggestion “Healthier” or “Healthier and cheaper” in the fodjan app and in the assistant in fodjan Pro. Where you can view the evaluation, how it is composed and how you can improve feed health with fodjan, you can read in the following.
How is the FHE value calculated? This can best be understood in fodjan Pro (web view of fodjan). The basis for the calculation of the feed health
- is the feed model (which nutrients are activated on your farm)
- and in addition the settings in the feed groups (preset by the model, but can be adjusted individually).
These settings in the standard fodjan model come from scientific literature and general country models (for Germany e.g. GfE).
To follow this, go to your animal groups / feed groups in the fodjan Pro web view via the menu, select an animal group and switch to the “Requirements” tab. Here you can see if and which requirements (from the model or your own) have been stored. What the optimum range does is explained in more detail below the picture.
Click on the pencil symbol to open a graph showing the calculation of the feed health value for this ingredient. The minimum and maximum serve as outer tolerance limits, optimal minimum and maximum as desired range. This means:
- Below the minimum or above the maximum, there is a feed health evaluation score (FHE) of 0 points.
- Between the optimum minimum and the maximum, the highest FHE value is 100 points.
- Between the minimum and the optimum minimum, and on the right-hand side between the optimum maximum and the maximum, the graph draws a straight line on which the FGB value is between 0 and 100 points. So if our ration has an RNB of 32, for example, our FHE value is about 50 points. This makes it possible to compare several rations with regard to the feed health value.
You can already see the evaluation at each ration in the ration overview. To get to the ration overview, go to Rations > Overview in the left menu. Then select the desired feed group.
Mini indicators at the ration:
If a green straight bar appears on the left side of a ration, the requirements for the minerals in the ration are sufficiently fulfilled.
If a red bar appears on the left of a ration, the requirements for the minerals in the ration are not sufficiently fulfilled.
A reil yellow bar means that the settings of the feed group or contained feeds have been changed after this ration has been calculated. Clicking on the ration line or the eye icon will then offer a re-evaluation that should be done to update the feed health and mineralisation evaluation.
If you hover over the bars with the mouse, you can directly see the meaning of the colours, e.g. here:
However, this bar does not show the entire feed health rating of the ration. This is what the point in the FHE column at the end of the ration line is for and the details view (more on that below).
Speedometer in the ration:
In Pro, the total feed health score is displayed under each ration with the speedometer symbol. If the pointer here is on red, the ration fulfils the requirements for feed health only insufficiently.
Detail view of the feed health
When you click on a ration, you can select the “Feed health” tab at the top left. It will show you to which degree the requirements are fulfilled by which nutrient. Green means sufficient/good, red insufficient and grey marginal but sufficient.
You may see a notification “This ration does not comply with some feed group settings”. Then it is not possible to optimize the ration based on your entered ration. In this case, read the help article Notification: Settings of the feed group are not complied with
In the app, you can also see the feed health evaluation in the ration overview. If the feed health rating is red here, then the ration only insufficiently fulfils the requirements.
Below that you can click on “Show Details”. In the following view, you will see which nutrients fulfil the requirements to which degree (deficiency, surplus). For more information on a nutrient, you can also click on the nutrient.
In fodjan you have the opportunity to improve the feed health evaluation using the ration optimisation functions. In these functions, you will also see how other parameters (e.g., milk yield, costs, IOFC, etc.) change when optimising health:
- The Assistant in fodjan Pro (select the Assistant menu item in the left menu)
- New calculation (ration catalog) (you can find the ration catalog in the left menu under Rations > New calculation).
- In the app with the ration suggestions “Healthier” or “Healthier and cheaper”. Here you can find the ration suggestions in the app: select Feeding in the bottom menu
- select feed group
- select ration
Scroll down in the overview. There you will find the ration suggestions. You can scroll to the right and left in these ration suggestions and in this way, you will also find the “Healthier” or “Healthier and Low-Priced” ration suggestions.
More about ration optimisation you can also read here.
This phenomenon occurs with feed groups that have a ration divided into feeding table and feeding station(s). For the ration, the feed health is always calculated for the entire ration, i.e. including the feed station(s). However, if you now use “Feed now” for this ration, only the feed table ration is mixed and the subsequent evaluation therefore only refers to the feed health at the feed table. As a result, the feed health here can deviate from the value of the total ration.
See also
What is „Milk yield per ration”?
Read more >
Create, edit and delete rations
Read more >
Change displayed nutrients of the ration
Read more >
Notification: Settings of the feed group are not complied with
Read more >
Ration scaling to a quantity target
Read more >
Questions we couldn’t answer?
Simply keep searching here:
Contact us:
support@fodjan.de
or weekdays in in urgent cases:
+49 (0) 351 4188 6693