Costings and tools

Achieving the best balance between resources and performance levels is a constant challenge for beef and sheep producers.

The Better Returns Programme aims to promote a thorough understanding of enterprise costings and performance through the use of simple management tools to help producers cost their business, highlight areas for improvement and monitor progress against comparable data.

Click through to each of the tools below to see how they can help you.

Deadweight price calculator

The deadweight price calculator enables lamb producers to compare the prices offered by two abattoirs taking into account different dressing specifications, abattoir charges and transport deductions. Answer a simple series of questions and the converter does the rest.

Silage decision tool

EBLEX and the British Grassland Society have developed this tool to help beef and sheep farmers make their ideal virtual grass silage by answering a series of multiple choice questions. The tool then assesses the quantity, quality and cost of the silage that would have been made based on the answers given.

Snapshot tools

The electronic Snapshot tools, developed by EBLEX farm business economists, are designed to help producers find out more about the performance of their enterprise.

Blends calculator

This simple tool enables you to calculate the cost and energy and protein density of home blends.

All you need to do is choose the feeds you are including in your blends from a list of over 65 different feeds and enter the cost (£/tonne) of those feeds. You can also enter new feeds which are not on the list as long you know the DM, ME and CP values.

The blend calculator then calculates the composition and cost of the blend using the feeds chosen and the proportion of the feeds in the mix.

Virtual Grass

The Virtual Grass Tool allows you to evaluate the impact of soil fertility and nutrients on grass yield, cost and stocking density.