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Basic settings for ration optimisation

Required user rights – fodjan Pro: write rights, owner or admin | App: write rights or edit rations rights.

The algorithm can only work as accurately as you allow it to

In order for your ration suggestions to best suit your farm, the settings and data on your fodjan farm should be as up-to-date and accurate as possible. Of course, a programme can never reproduce reality 100%, but the closer we get together, the more suitable your ration suggestions will be. You can get an overview of the ration optimisation functions in fodjan here.

You can find out which settings you can check in fodjan to better adapt your ration suggestions to your farm in our checklist below.

Our recommendation: Take your time and do not tackle all the checks at once, but work through the recommendations step by step. And it’s worth it: most of the points are one-off adjustments that will remain in place for a long time. Once you have made the right adjustments, you will benefit in the long term.

In order to be able to adjust and improve rations with the assistant in fodjan Pro or with the ration suggestions in the fodjan App, you must have created the ration for the corresponding feed group. How to create rations, read here.

If you use the ration catalogue (New Calculation), you can use it to create a completely new ration or optimise an existing one.

Include all the feed you have available on your farm in your feed stock. However, it is difficult for many farms to give exact feed costs, especially of feed they produce themselves. The same applies to dry matter, which is usually not measured daily in order to adjust it in fodjan.

Therefore we recommend: Maintain as accurate as necessary for the goals you have in feeding.

Here are a few best practices from our fodjan users:

  • Dry matter: You do not need to determine DM levels on a daily basis. We recommend that before you make any ration optimisation or adjustment in fodjan, you take a small sample of the most commonly used feeds (ergo basic feeds) and determine the dry matter.
  • Nutrients: Regular feed analyses help enormously with ration optimisation, as only with exact ingredients can the quality of the supply to your animals be correctly indicated by fodjan (see in particular Feed Health). Especially when changing feed, a feed analysis makes sense. However, with the interface to the feed laboratory in fodjan you make this work easier for yourself, because with it the data from your feed analyses come automatically into fodjan and you can simply integrate them into your rations (more about this here).
  • Feed costs: If you want to optimise your feed costs or your IOFC, you should maintain the feed costs per feed in your herd. Estimating is also better than entering nothing, because then the algorithm can include all feeds in the ration in the cost consideration in the first place.

This check is done quickly. In most cases, the default settings that fodjan stored during your registration already fit very well, so you do not need to adjust anything here.

The feed model sets which ingredients are to be considered for all feed groups and rations on your farm. The feed database helps you to add or test new feeds in your ration until you have your own feed test. Read more here.

However, a valuable adjustment for you in the feed model can be the selection of nutrients, which are then also displayed in your ration overview and taken into account in the ration optimisation. Here, however, it is worthwhile to seek the expertise of your feeding advisor or veterinarian.

But be careful! Otherwise, careless settings will quickly lead to the algorithm no longer finding rations that can still meet a large number of set requirements.

Explanation of the page “Feed model” in fodjan read here.

In the feed group you can define further requirements based on the settings in the feed model – these are useful per feed group, as you may allow different amounts of concentrate, feed amounts in general etc. for your high performance group than for your dry standing group, for example. Again, it may be worthwhile to seek the expertise of your feeding advisor or vet.

You can find tips on how to optimally adjust your feeding group settings in our help article Mastering feeding group settings.

When using a feeding station, it must also be activated in the feeding group. You can find out how to set up a concentrate feeding station here.

The following feed group settings are also important for ration optimisation:

Further tips for ration optimisation:

In addition to the ration optimisation functions of fodjan, you will also find many evaluations and key figures on your fodjan farm that support you in improving your feeding and achieving your goals.

For each ration these are, for example:

In addition, there is a complete evaluation area in fodjan with well-prepared graphics and tables on your farm. Find out more here.

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See also


Page „Assistant“ in fodjan Pro
Read more >

Ration optimisation with fodjan – Overview
Read more >

Ration catalogue: Have alternative feeds suggested
Read more >

Ration catalogue: What to do if no ration suggestions are displayed?
Read more >

New calculation – ration catalogue in fodjan Pro
Read more >

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