Livestock stocking rate
How many animals your veld can carry, using large stock units (LSU) and grazing capacity.
Only the veld or pasture the animals actually graze. Leave out lands, roads and dense bush they can't use.
Roughly 3–6 ha/LSU in high-rainfall grassland and sourveld, 6–15 in bushveld and savanna, 15–40+ in the Karoo and Kalahari fringes. Check your area's official grazing capacity map.
Default values per head; change any to match your animals.
Enter the grazing area and grazing capacity, then your animals, to see the stocking rate.
How this is calculated
One large stock unit (LSU) is a 450 kg animal gaining 0.5 kg a day on forage with 55% digestible energy (Meissner, 1982), the standard used across Southern Africa. Every animal is expressed as a share of that.
- Carrying capacity (LSU) = grazing area (ha) ÷ grazing capacity (ha/LSU). 500 ha at 5 ha/LSU carries 100 LSU.
- Your herd (LSU) = the sum of head × LSU per head. 60 cows × 1.0 + 50 calves × 0.35 + 3 bulls × 1.5 = 82 LSU.
- Utilisation = herd LSU ÷ carrying capacity × 100. 82 ÷ 100 = 82%.
- Spare or surplus = capacity − herd, shown as whole cows: extra cows are rounded down and cows to destock are rounded up, so both answers keep you within capacity.
- From live mass: LSU per head = (average mass kg ÷ 450)0.75. A 750 kg bull is (750 ÷ 450)0.75 = 1.47 LSU. This is a rough guide for cattle; for sheep and goats use the table values (about six per LSU). Horses eat more for their mass, so check their value against local advice.
Default LSU per head: cow (dry or in calf) 1, calf at foot (to weaning) 0.35, mature bull 1.5, heifer, weaner or tolly 0.6, sheep (ewe or ram) 0.16, goat 0.16, horse 1.2. Default LSU per head are typical Southern African values; edit them to match your animals.
Grazing capacity changes with rainfall, veld condition and season. Use your local department of agriculture's grazing capacity map as the starting point, and stock more lightly in drought years.
Read the guide: Veld stocking rates: using large stock units to match animals to grazing
Results are estimates for planning. Check product labels and local recommendations before you apply anything.