Least-cost feed formulation: you set the limits, it finds the cheapest way to meet them
Choose your ingredients, enter a minimum and a maximum for every nutrient that matters, and press one button. FeedForté returns the lowest-cost combination that satisfies every one of them, and tells you which limits are holding the price up.
- Any nutrient you define. Add your own nutrients, units, categories and calculations. Nothing is hard-coded to one species.
- Ratio constraints between any two nutrients. Hold one nutrient at a set proportion of another: amino acids against lysine, calcium against phosphorus, or any pair you define. Minimum ratios are enforced as the ration is built.
- Limits on ingredients and whole categories. Cap an ingredient, fix it at an exact inclusion, exclude it, or hold a whole category within a band.
- As-fed or dry-matter basis. Switch the whole formula between the two and every limit is carried across with it.
- When it cannot be done, it says why. Impossible combinations are named precisely, with the exact change that would make the formula solvable.
FeedForté does not make nutritional decisions and does not offer opinions on your targets. It computes cost, consequence and constraint, and presents them clearly. Every nutritional judgement stays where it belongs: with you.
One selector flips the entire formula between an as-fed and a dry-matter basis – and a dry-matter target is enforced while the ration is built, not converted afterwards. See how it works ↓
No hidden ceilings
Nothing is capped behind your back. A blank maximum means exactly that, so the result you get is the result your limits actually describe.
Test a price first
Type a price you have been offered, rebuild the formula on it, and see what it would really be worth before you commit to the purchase.
Test a value first
Do the same with a nutrient. Try a batch of maize at a lower energy, rebuild on it, and put it back: the change belongs to that formula alone and your database is never touched.
One selector, and the whole formula changes basis
Most programs will show you a dry-matter figure. FeedForté formulates on it: every minimum and maximum enforced as a dry-matter target while the ration is being built, landing exactly on it whatever the final dry matter turns out to be.
| Nutrient | Value | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry Matter % | 100.0000 | ||
| ME kcal/kg | ✓3,068.18 | 3,050.00 | |
| Crude Protein % | ▼18.7500 | 18.7500 | |
| Crude Fibre % | ✓4.3182 | 5.0000 | |
| Calcium % | ✓1.0795 | 1.0000 | 1.1500 |
| Avail. Phosphorus % | ▼0.4773 | 0.4773 |
Press the selector: the same ration, read both ways. Figures are illustrative.
- It is a target, not a conversion. A dry-matter minimum is enforced while the ration is being built. Nothing is calculated on an as-fed basis and converted afterwards, which is where the drift creeps in.
- One switch, the whole formula. Every minimum and maximum you have already entered carries across with it. There is no re-typing, and no per-value tagging to keep straight.
- Both bases stay readable. Flip back and the same limits appear as their as-fed equivalents, so a mill hand and a nutritionist can read the same ration in the units each of them thinks in.
- It follows through to the paperwork. The daily intake column and the printed technical report both carry the basis, and the report says on its face which one the limits were set on.
- It checks before it lets you switch. If an ingredient you have selected has no dry matter entered, you are told which ones and why it matters: before you build a formula on figures that cannot hold.
Ruminant and aquaculture specifications are written on a dry-matter basis, and moisture in the raw materials moves week to week. A program that only displays dry matter leaves you converting by hand and re-entering limits every time the basis changes, which is both slow and exactly where a decimal goes missing.
A tonne of feed, and every band is an ingredient
This is the demonstration ration built at the top of the page, drawn as the tonne itself. Each band is one raw material and its thickness is that material’s share of the tonne. Hover a line to find it in the stack, then put the maize price up and watch it rebuild.
Drag to turn it. The three thinnest bands are drawn at a minimum thickness so they stay visible: the figures beside them are exact.
| Ingredient | Inclusion | Weight | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maize | 53.0100 % | 530.10 kg | |
| Soybean Meal | 21.7400 % | 217.40 kg | |
| Rice Bran | 10.0000 % | 100.00 kg | |
| Canola Meal | 8.0000 % | 80.00 kg | |
| Sunflower Meal | 4.3800 % | 43.80 kg | |
| Limestone | 1.5300 % | 15.30 kg | |
| Dicalcium Phosphate | 0.5100 % | 5.10 kg | |
| Salt | 0.4000 % | 4.00 kg | |
| Vitamin–Mineral Premix | 0.2500 % | 2.50 kg | |
| DL-Methionine | 0.1000 % | 1.00 kg | |
| L-Lysine | 0.0800 % | 0.80 kg | |
| Total | 100.0000 % | 1,000.00 kg | |
Ingredient cost / tonne $299.17
Least-cost on today’s prices. Put the maize price up and it rebuilds around it.