Some growers will want to supplement their flocks with their own feed. Growers will give their flocks a wheat supplement. For one-time, or exceptional supplements, user can already use the feed delivery to create a special delivery with a formulation designated for this type of feed. However, for planning and scheduling this we utilize Feed supplement Adjustments. With this feature, users can create adjustment schedules that look more like a standard table, rather than the seasonal adjustments they are used to. These standards are applied to flock consumption intervals at the same age, so it can be easy to manage them for flocks without having to create a litany of grower-centric standard tables. Since our supplements are policies of the growers we will add these adjustment tables to houses, and give them effective dates. One adjustment schedule can span across many flocks, change mid-flock, or even be created from scratch effective from the start on the next flock.
Configuration
Feed Supplement Adjustments are maintained on the house form. The house form can be located from the "Facilities" tree from the main form. Select the house you wish to manage and open it.
A new tab has been added to this form. This tab, titled "Feed Supplements" has the adjustment tables we will need to set-up. To create a table, enter an effective date and add values in the second column. The "Age" column is automatically maintained by the form. The value entered will represent the total amount to adjust for that day- if the grower is filling the bin to 2% capacity with wheat, then 2% is adjusted from consumption. The value you enter here is not the cumulative amount (we can calculate that and provide it in reports). Negative values are not permitted on the form.
You can create as many effective tables as you like, but never two on the same date. to copy an existing table, select that table, choose to "Add New", set the new effective date, and check the option to copy the existing table.
Any changes to either effective dates or values are not committed until you click the "Save" button on the house form.
Should you wish to add a value between two existing ones, right-click the screen and choose to "Insert Above" a new field will appear in place of the one you selected, while the old value is moved down to the next age.
To delete a value, select it and click "Delete" on the context menu. The age column will automatically recalculate itself.
Deleted Items will not be committed until you click the "save" button on the house form. Should you accidentally delete something you can reset the form to retrieve it.
The calculation will not attempt to reduce the amount of bin capacity available on the house. When you schedule feed with an effective feed supplement adjustment table you will still see deliveries that may meet the bin capacity for the house. This should not cause issues if the grower is adding his supplement after scheduled deliveries, topping-off the bin.
If growers add the supplement before, or during scheduled deliveries this may result in excess feed that may need to be returned. If this may be the case, you can override the bin capacities on the house to reduce the overall amount available for the feed plan to consider. This may cause an extra delivery or two, but it will always account for space needed for supplemented feed.
We've included a field on the flock form to disable calculating feed supplement adjustments for a flock. This will disregard any settings applied to the flock's houses that would adjust the feed consumption and reduce the amount of feed to deliver.
Feed Plan Adjustments for Supplements
When the feed plan loads, the effective feed supplement tables will load for the all houses the flock is placed in (estimated or actual). Every change in effective date is considered during the life of a flock. If the effective date changes on the 18th day of the flock, for example, the adjustment value from that age is used in the calculations.
During the calculation of the feed plan, the adjustments are calculated for every day of the flock, adjusting that value for each day. In this example:
- I created an adjustment effective on 1/1/2017 with daily values of 1%.
- On the 30th, I created a new effective date with all values adjusting to 2%, you can see how the new effective values start on the 30th.
- For each age of the flock, it's adjustment is calculated, and applied to the "Value" column. This column represents the standard consumption for that flock.
- The percentage value is taken from the unadjusted value and applied accordingly.
When the feed plan calculates it is not apparent on the plan records themselves that the value has been adjusted. Users with access to the feed plan detail can see the adjusted amounts for the planned delivery. The "Total Adjusted Amount" will factor in all adjustments, both feed supplement and seasonal. The total adjusted for feed supplement will be displayed in it's own column.
