Drought and Supplementary Feed Calculator

During drought conditions, livestock producers face critical decisions about feeding strategies that directly impact animal welfare and farm economics. Calculating the right nutritional requirements and feed quantities becomes increasingly complex when resources are limited and expensive.

Before the development of the Drought Supplementary Feed Calculator, farmers relied on basic spreadsheets or manual calculations that were time-consuming and often failed to account for the full range of variables affecting feed requirements. This led to potential over or under-feeding, compromising animal welfare and causing unnecessary financial strain during already challenging periods.

Additionally, farmers needed a way to quickly compare different feed options and their relative cost-effectiveness, particularly when traditional feed sources became scarce or prohibitively expensive during widespread drought conditions.

The calculator is based on research started in the 70s and has been continuously updated ever since. The calculations were supplied as an Excel spreadsheet with over a dozen tabs and with embedded formulas and calculations which were not documented at all. There were related academic papers which described and documented the research, but many of the formulas and calculations were spread across multiple papers over decades of academic research.

Mobiddiction had to re-create all the calculations in a form usable as a web app and in native mobile apps, while ensuring all outputs were correct and matched the Excel calculations.

Mobiddiction partnered with the NSW Department of Primary Industries to transform complex nutritional science into an accessible digital tool. The approach focused on creating an intuitive mobile and web solution that would allow farmers to make quick, informed decisions about feed rations regardless of their location or connectivity.

The team recognised that for maximum adoption, the tool needed to deliver practical, actionable outputs such as specific quantities for different mob sizes and feeding schedules. It also needed to include a comprehensive database of feed types with their nutritional profiles to enable meaningful comparisons between feed options.

The design process centered on creating an intuitive interface that could be easily used by farmers with varying levels of technical proficiency. The team at Mobiddiction worked closely with industry leads and stake holders with experience in the livestock areas to come up with the overview, and solutions to digitise the research and calculations. This was done by mapping the user journey, channels of use and how we can keep the experience simple yet effective.

Key design considerations included:

• Creating a clean, uncluttered interface that worked well on small screens and in outdoor conditions with variable lighting
• Organising complex calculations into logical, sequential steps that matched farmers’ decision making processes
• Implementing smart defaults based on common scenarios to reduce data entry time
• Ensuring all critical information was easily accessible without excessive navigation
• Designing for offline functionality, recognizing that rural users often have limited connectivity

The Drought Supplementary Feed Calculator delivers a comprehensive solution for livestock producers, enabling them to:

The calculator features a comprehensive feeds database listing average nutritional values of 71 different feeds, allowing users to compare and develop mixed rations. Feed additives can be incorporated to calculate overall ration cost. The tool accounts for different sized mobs and feeding frequencies, with outputs that can be saved and easily shared with others.

DASFC was designed to help farmers calculate drought and supplementary feed rations for sheep and cattle, available on multiple platforms for maximum accessibility.