Our RGP (Rotational Grazing Planning) Tool helps us organize information to better manage our grazing flock. We want to plan so that the animals are getting enough food and the pastures are getting enough, but not too much, grazing to move us toward our hoped-for carbon farming outcomes.
Simple
The tool is oriented toward a simple grazing operation. Our grazing operation is not run for profit; our goals do not include meat production, or selling livestock; we want to understand how many animals we need to graze our land effectively for carbon farming. The tool also helps us understand how much hay we need to purchase to feed our flock, working with the grass we have. Your goals might be different; you might need a more complex tool; if so, you might want to take an online or in-person Holistic Management International.
Analyze
Our RGP (Rotational Grazing Planning) Tool is our place to plug in and analyze the information we’ve discussed in the Rotational Grazing pages. The tool is an Excel spreadsheet with embedded formulas to perform calculations. The resulting numbers help you set up a mental grid to guide you about where to graze the flock each day.
We’ve created a live copy of the tool for you to download if you like. You’ll need to know how to use an Excel spreadsheet to get the most out of this tool. But even if you don’t know Excel, you can see what we did, then figure out your own numbers the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper, or a calculator.
The Tool Has Four Pages
There are four different pages inside the tool. When you open the file, you can find the titles of the four pages (or “sheets,” in Excel lingo) along the bottom of the screen: