Mobs

The Mobs tab is your paddock map. You create named groups of cattle — mobs — and pin each one to a paddock on your farm map. This gives you a visual answer to the question: "Where are my cattle right now, and what's in each paddock?"

What is a mob?

A mob is a named group of cattle that are managed together — they're in the same paddock, on the same feed, treated as a single unit day to day. Common examples:

• "Home paddock breeders" — 60 cows with calves at foot in the home paddock
• "Back block weaners" — 35 weaner steers in the back paddock after weaning
• "Yearling heifers" — 22 heifers running together on the river flat

Mobs are a management layer — they're how you track where your cattle physically are on the property, and what's in each paddock. You can have multiple mobs on a single farm, one per paddock.

Creating and naming a mob

1. Open the Mobs tab and select the farm you want to work with.
2. Tap Add Mob (or the + button).
3. Give the mob a name. Keep it short and descriptive — "River flat breeders" or "Jan weaners" works well.
4. Enter the number of head in each livestock class that make up this mob.
5. Tap Save. The mob will appear in your mob list and can now be placed on the farm map.

Assigning a mob to a paddock

Once a mob is created, you can place it on the farm map:

1. In the Mobs tab, find the mob you want to place.
2. Tap the mob to open its details.
3. Under Paddock, select the paddock from the dropdown list. (Paddocks are set up in Setup → Paddocks.)
4. Save the mob. On the farm map, the mob's name and head count will now appear over that paddock.

If a paddock doesn't appear in the dropdown, you'll need to create it first in Setup.

Moving a mob to a different paddock

When you move cattle from one paddock to another, update the mob's paddock assignment:

1. Open the mob from the Mobs tab.
2. Change the Paddock field to the new paddock.
3. Save. The mob's pin moves on the farm map immediately.

If the head count changes during the move (e.g. you split a mob or joined two together), update the numbers in the mob before saving. If you split into two groups, you may want to create a second mob for the breakaway group.

Mob composition

When you create or edit a mob, you enter the breakdown by livestock class:

You don't need to fill in every class — just the ones that apply to this particular mob. Leave the others at zero.

DSE — Dry Sheep Equivalents

DSE stands for Dry Sheep Equivalent. It's the standard Australian unit for measuring how much feed an animal needs, expressed relative to a 50 kg Merino wether (sheep). Every animal on your property — regardless of species or class — gets a DSE value based on its size and feed requirements.

DSE is used to answer three practical questions:

• How much pasture am I using? (total DSE load on the property)
• What can this paddock carry? (paddock area × DSE/ha capacity)
• Am I overstocked or understocked? (comparing load to capacity)

BlackCow calculates the DSE load for each mob based on its composition, and adds them together to give you a total DSE load in the DSE tab.

DSE ratings by livestock class

These are standard MLA (Meat & Livestock Australia) values used in Australia. BlackCow applies these ratings when calculating mob DSE totals.

Worked examples

Example 1 — Calculating a mob's DSE load

You have a mob called "Home paddock breeders" made up of:

That single mob is putting 966 DSE of pressure on the home paddock.

Example 2 — Comparing load to paddock capacity

Your home paddock is 180 ha of improved kikuyu pasture. In good seasonal conditions it can carry around 8 DSE/ha.

• Paddock capacity: 180 ha × 8 DSE/ha = 1,440 DSE
• Current mob load: 966 DSE (from Example 1)
• Spare capacity: 474 DSE — you could add roughly 33 more cow/calf pairs (33 × 14 = 462 DSE) before reaching capacity

Example 3 — You're overstocked going into a dry season

Same paddock, but it's October and you haven't had rain. Carrying capacity drops to 5 DSE/ha.

• Paddock capacity (dry): 180 ha × 5 DSE/ha = 900 DSE
• Current mob load: 966 DSE
• Overstocked by: 66 DSE

To get back within capacity: 66 DSE ÷ 14 (cow + calf) = sell or move 5 cow/calf pairs. This is the kind of calculation that protects your pasture long-term.

Example 4 — After weaning

At weaning you separate the calves. Those 60 cows that were 14 DSE each (lactating) drop back to 8 DSE each (dry). The same 60 head goes from 840 DSE to 480 DSE — a drop of 360 DSE overnight just from drying off. This is why pasture often looks like it's recovering strongly after weaning.

DSE Modeller — what-if stocking

The Modeller sub-tab (inside the Mobs tab → DSE section) answers the question: "If I buy 40 yearling steers, where do they fit and how long can they graze?" — before you make the decision, not after.

It works by letting you build a hypothetical mob on screen and instantly showing how it affects every paddock on your farm.

How to use it

1. In the Mobs tab, scroll to the DSE section and tap the Modeller sub-tab.
2. Select the farm you want to model at the top.
3. The modeller starts with one row. Choose the livestock class from the dropdown (e.g. Yearling Steers) and enter the head count.
4. To model a mixed mob, tap + Add Row and add each class separately (e.g. 30 cows + 30 calves at foot).
5. The DSE/hd column shows the rate being applied per animal. The Total DSE column shows that row's contribution.
6. The Farm Impact panel updates live — showing your current farm DSE, the modelled addition, and the new total as a percentage of capacity.
7. The Paddock Recommendations table shows every paddock ranked by best fit.

Reading the Paddock Recommendations table

Farm Impact summary

Above the paddock table, the Farm Impact panel shows a live summary:

• Current farm DSE — sum of all existing mobs across all paddocks
• + Modelled — the DSE total from your hypothetical mob
• New farm total — what your stocking rate becomes, as a % of total farm capacity

The colour changes: green = comfortable, amber = getting full (80%+), red = over capacity (100%+).

DSE Settings — calibrate for your farm

The Settings sub-tab is where you tell BlackCow the specifics of your property so all the DSE calculations reflect reality rather than generic benchmarks. Settings are saved per farm — Jilliby and Cooks can have different values.

To open it: Mobs tab → DSE section → Settings sub-tab → select the farm at the top.

Farm-level settings

Per-class DSE overrides

Below the farm settings is a table showing every livestock class and its default DSE rating. If your cattle are consistently heavier or lighter than the national benchmarks, you can override the DSE value for this farm specifically.

For example: if your cows are large-framed Angus averaging 550 kg (not the 450 kg the default assumes), you might increase their DSE from 8 to 10. If you run smaller Herefords, you might drop it to 7. These adjustments flow through to every paddock capacity calculation on that farm.

Mobs vs livestock numbers

This is the most important thing to understand about mobs:

Think of it this way:

• Numbers tab = the total head count on your property. This is what feeds your reports, DSE calculations, and calving percentages.
• Mobs tab = which paddock those cattle are in, and how they're grouped for day-to-day management.

When you sell cattle, wean calves, or make a purchase, update both the mob (to reflect where cattle are now) and the Numbers tab (to update your total herd counts).