RGP Tool Page 3 “Tally” is where we make our plans for the coming year: where will the flock graze, and for how long?
RGP Tool Page 3 “Tally” is where we plan grazing & rest periods for each paddock.
The beauty of doing this planning in a spreadsheet instead of with a paper and pencil, or on a white board, is that the spreadsheet can calculate (“tally) as you go. So it’s a simple matter to suss out a beginning of a plan, then, see how it’s stacking up in terms of Field Days and rest periods in each paddock. If we aren’t hitting the mark, then, we can switch things around and enter new numbers until the tally comes out the way we’d like.
Over time, we can refer to our Tally sheets to ensure that we don’t always put the flock in the same place at the same time of year. That way, different plants, which come up and bloom at different times of year, get a chance to establish in the paddocks. This helps with our goal of building biodiversity.
Making a Tally
RGP Tool Page 3 “Tally” Column 1 lists all our grazing paddocks.
Column 2 lists Field Days, which is how many days the flock can graze in that paddock this year. (These numbers come from the calculations on RGP Tool Page 2, “Field Days.”) This is our “allotment of time” for that paddock for the conditions of this year—how many animals we have, how much they weigh, how much rain we are getting, etc.
Column 3 contains an embedded formula that keeps a running tally of how much of that allotment we use up as we enter numbers and play around with Columns 4 – 15.
By comparing Column 3 against Column 2 as we play around, we see how many of our Field Days we have already used up (the tally).
Once Column 3 equals or exceeds Column 2 for any given paddock, it’s time to stop using that paddock. We may need to take some days away from that paddock and plan on putting the sheep elsewhere for those days.
Fooling around with the numbers in Columns 13 – 15 for all the paddocks gives us the ability to manage the land through time, from the comfort of an armchair.
Of course, we cross-check our plan as the year unfolds with conditions that we see and hear and feel in the pastures. Rain falls or does not fall. Life unfolds with all its variables.
To keep track of what we actually do, and match it against the plan we lay out in RGP Page 3 “Tally,” we use a pen-and-notebook daily grazing log and RGP Tool Page 4, “Daily Log.”