Plan your next feeding conversation with more context.

It is a starting range for wanda, not a full ration.

The number you get covers concentrate only — the wanda or dana in the trough. Green fodder, silage and dry fodder are separate, and they come first: the concentrate is built on top of whatever your animal is already eating, not instead of it.

• For a milking cow or buffalo, the result is built in parts: a share for the body itself, a share for every litre of milk, and an extra share from the sixth month of pregnancy. A buffalo gets more per litre than a cow, because her milk is richer. The result lists each part, so you can see where the number comes from.
• For a fattening bull, the estimate is a share of live weight, adjusted for how good the forage is. For goats and sheep it also depends on what the animal is for: growing, pregnant or giving milk.
• For a calf it is age, not weight. A young calf's intake depends on the milk programme and on clean water far more than on how heavy it is.
• A dry animal gets a small allowance, plus the pregnancy share once she is six months or more. The last two or three weeks before calving still need a close-up plan built for that animal.
• For a very high yield, the upper figure stops at the most wanda the rumen can safely take. Past that point, more milk has to come from better fodder or silage, not from another kilo of wanda.

The answer comes as a range rather than one figure because two farms with the same animal often need different amounts. Forage analysis, body condition, health, weather, housing and water availability all move it.

The forage setting changes the answer more than anything else you enter.

It is the one field farmers are most tempted to answer generously. Choosing good forage when the reality is dry fodder gives you an estimate that is too low, and the animal pays for it.

• Good — green fodder available most days, cut at the right stage, and the animals clear it up rather than sorting through it.
• Average — a mix of green and dry, or quality that changes from week to week depending on what is available.
• Limited — mostly straw or dry fodder, very little green, or a lot left behind in the manger at the end of the day.

If you are unsure, pick the lower of the two you are considering. An estimate that is slightly generous is easier to correct than one that leaves the animal short.

Move slowly, and change one thing at a time.

• Introduce any change in concentrate gradually, over roughly a week to ten days. A sudden jump is where rumen trouble usually starts.
• Split the daily amount across meals instead of feeding it all at once.
• Keep effective fibre in front of the animal and clean water available at all times.
• Change one thing at a time. If you change the feed, the amount and the routine together, nothing that follows tells you which one did it.
• Watch appetite, dung and cud-chewing for a few days after any change, and write down what you see.

The Knowledge Hub goes into this in more detail, including how to record what you feed and what changes. Read the Knowledge Hub

Some questions need a person, not a calculator.

• An animal that is sick, injured, off feed, bloated or dehydrated needs a veterinarian now, not a feeding change.
• Dry, close-up, calving and lambing periods need a plan built for that animal.
• Weaning is not a calculator decision. Confirm consistent starter intake and health with your adviser first.
• A sudden drop in milk or in feed intake is a signal to ask, not to add another kilo.