Ranch/Game Management Software

[Raideranch]

Put this together and thought yall might be interested in using it.

Had to upload them as the old version of Excel and Word so hopefully they still work the same.

[Raideranch]

It’s not letting me upload anymore files because it reached the size limit so here are the instructions.

Ranch Management Instructions:

The Ranch Management program can be used to help you manage your property efficiently without overgrazing, overbrowsing or other habitat degradation. It is designed to be useful for any ranch from a high fence game ranch to a low fence cattle ranch. The program is geared towards managing a property based off how many bucks you would like to harvest a year. It is an ideal model that you can use to help manage your ranch.

All the cells in red are the ones that you have to enter your information. Everything in black is computed for you. Don’t assume anything I entered in red matches your information.

Ranch Acres: Enter the size of your property.

Acres per Animal Unit: Enter the number of acres your property needs to support one Animal Unit. This is an important cell and can vary greatly based of your area or specific property. Typical Carrying Capacity of the Hill Country is around 20 – 30 acres per animal unit and could be several times higher depending of your area.

Species: Enter the different species on your property. There is a section for deer/antelope that primarily have 1 young per birth and a section for Goats/Sheep that average 2 young per birth. The calculations are based off how many young per birth the animals have so be sure to enter them in the right section.
There is also a separate species section that is geared towards raising cattle or goats and the information needs to be entered in different cells so be sure to enter the correct information in the red cells. The most important thing in this section is cell A25. If you use this section for cattle you have to enter a 1, if you use this cell for goats you have to enter a 2.
If you are raising cattle and goats you can enter your goat information in the Goat/Sheep section above but you are going to have to enter the information differently. Example: If you would like to raise 10 kids a year you need to enter 5 in the Buck Harvest column and that will automatically enter 5 in the Doe Harvest column giving you a total of 10. If you plan to sell the goats as kids enter a 0 in the Harvest age column, if not enter the appropriate age but it will assume that the actual age is a half year older (explained below). If you’re raising something else like Lamas that have 1 young per birth use one of the deer/antelope rows.
If you have more rows available than animal species enter a 0 in the Buck Harvest column for that row.

Buck Harvest: This is the most important column because everything else is calculated based of this number. Enter the number of bucks you would like to harvest a year.
Harvest Age: Enter the average age that you plan to harvest each buck. Enter whole numbers, do not enter 5.5 for a five and a half year old buck, enter 5. Bucks are not harvested at 5 years old because you don’t hunt them in the Spring when they were born; you hunt them in the Fall half a year later. This is already accounted for. So if on average you harvest 4 bucks, (1) 4.5 year old cull, (2) 5.5 year olds and (1) 6.5 year old your average is 5.5 so enter 5.

B.H. Value: This is the amount that you plan to earn for harvesting each buck. So if you guide hunts or sell live animals enter the amount you expect to earn for each buck. If you hunt them all yourself just enter 0.

D.H. Value: Enter the amount you expect to earn from each doe.

Animal Units: Enter the number of Animal Units per animal in this column. There is a NRCS chart starting at row 50 that has values for more common animals. If you have an animal that is not on that chart use the Animal Unit Calculator. This is based off the most common method for calculating animal units.

Food Source: Enter a 1, 2, or 3 in this column. Enter a 1 if that animal is primarily a Browser, a 2 if the animal is primarily a Grazer or a 3 if the animal eats both equally or eats primarily Forbs. The NRCS chart also has the food source for common animals. Most of the animals eat forbs but they are a lot less available so very few animals use then as a primary food source.

Fawn/Calf Crop %: Enter the percentage of fawns or calves you expect to survive each year.

Natural Mortality: Enter the percent of animals that you expect to die each year of natural causes. This does not include the animals you harvested or the number of fawns that died (this is Fawn Crop %).

Feed % of Diet: Enter the percentage of the animals diet that you are providing from supplemental feed. There is a Feed % Diet Calculator the help figure this. If you are providing 2 lbs. a day of supplemental feed per lactating cow that would equal: 2/(1*26) = 7.7%. If you are providing 2 lbs. of supplemental feed per deer that would equal: 2/(.15*26) = 51%.

Feed $ per Lb.: Enter the price you pay for feed per pound. There is also a calculator the help figure this.

Calves per Year: Enter the number of claves you would like to raise per year.

Calf Value: Enter the amount you plan to earn from each calf you sell.

Stocker Calves: Enter the number of non reproducing animals that no longer depend on their mother.

Hogs: This section allows you to enter the number of hogs you think are on your property. You also need to enter the number of Animal Units per hog based off the average weight of the hogs. This data factors into how many total animals you have (so how many acres per animal) and the percent of your animal units that you have used. By changing the number of hogs you have you can predict how many other animals your property could support if it did not have hogs.
Income/Cost/Profit Section: To help you figure how much you are earning, spending and making.

Based off the data entered the program will automatically calculate all other values.
Two main things you probably wondering how the numbers were calculated:

1. Number of Does. This is based off of several things (Buck Harvest, Doe Harvest, Fawn Crop, Natural Mortality, etc…). This number will tell you how many does you need to produce the number of mature bucks you want to harvest a year. The Does are like a Factory and the Buck Harvest is like your supply and demand. You don’t want your Factory too large, producing more product than you can sell but you also don’t want it too small and producing too little.

2. Feed Cost. This is also based off of several things (Animal Units fed, % of diet fed, cost of feed per pound, etc…). The cost for each species is based off how many total Animal Units you are feeding for that species, not the number of animals. Ten cows do not eat the same amount of food a day as ten deer but, 10 Animal Units of cows eat, in general, eat the same amount of food per day as 10 Animal Units of deer.

Other questions might be:

Why can’t I change the Doe Harvest Value? This is because on average the number of doe fawns you have per year is equal to the number of buck fawns. So your Doe Harvest value has to equal your Buck Harvest to maintain an optimum population.
Why isn’t there a column for Doe Harvest Age? This is practically irrelevant because a 1.5 year old doe is going to be bred and have a fawn in the Spring just like a 5.5 year old doe. Their value is practically the same also.

Why doesn’t it account for fawns half a year? It does, the fawns are calculated as part of the does Animal Unit. This is also why feed cost is based off of the animals age in whole numbers. For a 5.5 year old deer .5 a year it was accounted for with its mother and the other 5 it is accounted for by itself.

Things to consider:
Acres per Animal and % Animal Units Used: Both of these are important in helping you determine how many animals your property can support without going over the Carrying Capacity and causing overgrazing, overbrowsing or other habitat degradation. Animal Units are based mainly off the amount of feed available. So by providing supplemental feed you are increasing the number of Animal Units your property can support but this is only one factor of the Carrying Capacity. You also have to consider other things that determine Carrying Capacity like the amount of shelter, water, waste produced, etc. This is where you need to consider you Acres per Animal. If you have been told that ideally you would have 1 deer per 20 acres that is also accounting for the fact that you probably have cows or other animals on your property. This number is based off of total number of animals not just deer so it should be smaller than 20 to 1.

The percent Bowser/Grazer Calculator: This gives you an idea of what percent of you Animal Units are mainly consuming browse and what percent are mainly consuming grass. This can help you match your animals to your property. For example: If your property is mostly grass than you can’t expect to support your total Animal Units of browsers and vice versa. If your property has an equal amount of grass and browse than ideally you would have %50 browsers and %50 grazers. This is an estimator and not exact because 2 different animal species mainly consume browse might consume a different % of browse even though browse is there primary food source.

Competition among Animals: Animals that primarily eat the same food source are in competition with each other even in favorable conditions. Under less than ideal condition all animals are in a greater extent of competition with each other. So if you are trying to improve your deer herd you would be better off raising cattle than goats because they are not competing with the deer under normal conditions like goats.

Side Notes:
If you already have a determined Feed Cost, enter the amount you pay per lb. then adjust Feed % of Diet until you get that cost.

If you lease you place for hunting add that income to one of the Misc. Income cells and enter zeros for the B.H. and D.H. values.

All animals are shown as whole numbers. You cannot have 1.2 deer, you still have 1 deer. If the value equals 1.8 deer it will be shown as 2 deer. This is why if you make a small change in Natural Mortality or something else and have a small number of animals don’t expect to see a change in the number of animals unless it is large enough or small enough to equal the next whole deer. Cells that show total animals might appear to be off by one because they are adding the fractions.

% Fawn Crop and % Natural Mortality are not equal. A 10% change in one is not the same as a 10% change in the other. It might appear that way with small changes in small populations but they are different because the number of does you need to account of a 20% Natural Mortality changes depending on your fawn crop. So if you usually have a low fawn crop you need a greater number of does to account for a 20% loss per year and if you usually have an excellent fawn crop you will need a smaller number of does to make up for the 20% natural mortality.

Your fawn crop and Natural Mortality can vary a lot depending on your conditions. Is your ranch high fence with low predators and you feed year around or low fence with not feed and more predators?

The calculations are based off a year, not 6 months and not 2 years.

This is an ideal model, you would need to adjust your animal populations to match and then harvest the correct numbers accordingly to equal.

This model could be used several different ways. Say if you wanted to purchase a property to hunt and raise a few cows you can enter the correct information then change Ranch Acres till you get an ideal Acres per Animal and % Animal units used.

Definitions:
Animal Unit - is a standardized measure of animals used for various agricultural purposes. A 1,000-pound beef cow (plus a calf with her for six months of the year) is the standard measure of an animal unit. The dry matter forage requirement of one animal unit is 26 pounds per day. One assumption made when calculating Animal Units is that all animals consume the same % of their body weight per day. This does vary depending on the different animals metabolism but for the most part it is 3-4% of body weight per day.
Carrying Capacity – the density of animals the land can support without degrading the habitat.
Browse – leaves and other parts from woody vegetation.
Grass – grasses and grass like plants such as sedges.
Forbs – nonwoody, broad-leafed plants like annual weeds. (Clover, Sunflower, Milkweed)

[Raideranch]

Double post for some reason.

[SFAthumper]

i developed something similar to this, but mine is geared more towards the high fence or intensive deer management scenarios

[Raideranch]

This came about because I wanted to compare different scenarios like in high fence management. I thought I would post it on here so I added a few things like the Cattle section so it might be more useful and put some instructions with it. What did you think? I thought about changing up the Cattle section to include game animals that you might want to just raise to sell the young. That way you could show like a 1 buck and several doe breeding operation.

[SFAthumper]

i think this program is on the right track. You might look at my post on your thread about the animal units vs acres per deer. You could definately break it down and manipulate excel to use all of your formulas over multiple sheets (on the bottom of the workbook).

you would then be able to break down what you have right now and make different sections. an example would be to have all of the animal unit values, cost values, acres, etc on the firt sheet, and then from there, reference those numbers into other sheets. You could have a white-tailed deer breeding operation sheet. The values used for feed costs etc, would all come from your beginning sheet, and other activities (ex. cattle operations) would be on another sheet.

good idea with the program....... im not sure how you got the document to be what it is now, but when i opened it, i could not see any of your calculations. you may have done this to ensure no one re-produces your work.... idk

[Raideranch]

I locked the cells to prevent the calculations from accidentally getting deleted or messed up. Some of them were extremely long and could be messed up pretty easily.

[SFAthumper]

got ya.... thats a good idea, how did you lock them??

do you know the flipping the screen trick? lets you flip it and see your calculations

[Raideranch]

To lock them I selected all the cells with “Ctrl A” then protected the entire file. Then I went back and unlocked each cell than needs to be changed and changed the font color to red. To change it from locked to unlocked, right click then format cell. Don’t know about flipping the screen I just click on the cell are read it up top.

[SFAthumper]

if you need to flip the screen and look at multiple calculations at 1 time "control ~"

[Encinal]

Why can’t I change the Doe Harvest Value? This is because on average the number of doe fawns you have per year is equal to the number of buck fawns. So your Doe Harvest value has to equal your Buck Harvest to maintain an optimum population.
Why isn’t there a column for Doe Harvest Age? This is practically irrelevant because a 1.5 year old doe is going to be bred and have a fawn in the Spring just like a 5.5 year old doe. Their value is practically the same also.

I wrote one of these too and this statement right here is the MAJOR break from reality of the model...

I used a 60% across the board fawn crop%... In reality, to maintain steady harvest, you are going to have to fluctuate your doe numbers to fill in holes in bad fawn crop years.

You also need to take into account in your program if you haven't already the relative age of your doe herd by age class to know their personal success in recruitment...

I have my model if you would like to see it (dunno if it is on this computer)

[Raideranch]

I used a 60% across the board fawn crop%... In reality, to maintain steady harvest, you are going to have to fluctuate your doe numbers to fill in holes in bad fawn crop years.

I have my model if you would like to see it (dunno if it is on this computer)

This is why I mentioned that the calculations are based off a year and not longer and you can change your fawn crop % for that year. So if you have a bad fawn crop one year it will show that you need a larger # of does. If you would like to post yours or email it to me I wouldn’t mind seeing it.

[Raideranch]

You also need to take into account in your program if you haven't already the relative age of your doe herd by age class to know their personal success in recruitment...

This was intended more towards managing your property to maintain an ideal habitat as well as balancing the numbers of animals you have and not as much towards a breeding program. The management for traits was more towards how you selectively harvested your bucks. I don’t know exactly what recruitment you are talking about…like ideal traits?

[Encinal]

This was intended more towards managing your property to maintain an ideal habitat as well as balancing the numbers of animals you have and not as much towards a breeding program. The management for traits was more towards how you selectively harvested your bucks. I don’t know exactly what recruitment you are talking about…like ideal traits?

No not a breeding program...

You can't spit out doe fawns into your doe category in your model the first year... they aren't going to have offspring themselves as 1 year olds... and their success as 2 year olds isn't going to be 60%

In your average year... your 2 year old does (first time mothers) are going to be well below average at having fawns and your 4+ year old does will be above average...

This has to be taken into account in your year over year model to know the age structure of your doe herd and know generally what things are looking like...

You are right though... does are the engine.

Theoretically if you determine the "bell curve" of your place's genetics you should be able to figure out 160 percentage and know within a few, how many deer over 160 you will have available in each age class...

This can be reinforced real time with game cameras etc...

I really think that 160 percentage (really 170 percentage in some cases) is a heck of a lot better grasp on baseline ranch genetics than distance from the mean south texas mature buck average score that has been determined in several studies... I think the KR study is most quoted.

I Looked for my model... It isn't on this computer... It must be at the office...

[Raideranch]

I wasn’t really counting on the 1 year olds to have fawns but to be bred at 1 and a half and have a fawn at 2 and as far as the fawn crop for different age does you would need to enter your overall average. Ideally year to year you would have the same number of does unless you wanted to increase or decrease the size of your population. The thing that would change would be the number of does you harvested. The problem with this is that you cannot predict the future. If you knew that you were going to have a bad fawn crop in the Spring you could compensate by reducing the number of does you harvested the previous Fall. Also if you could predict a really good fawn crop you could harvest more does the previous Fall. That’s why this is like an ideal model and cannot be exact.

As far as my take on which does to harvest:
This is complicated because for the most part you are breeding for antler growth and does don’t have antlers and in a randomly mating population you don’t have a pedigree as a guideline to know which does have more favorable genetic and which do not. So unless you know which of your does have already produced bucks with favorable traits your best bet would be to harvest the oldest does, because if your genetics are improving each year, in general, the younger does will have better genetics.