Bringing USDA-grade accuracy to stocking rate decisions — free, simple, and instant.
Calculating accurate stocking rates used to mean either hiring a consultant, wading through dense USDA documentation, or relying on rough rules of thumb that didn't account for your specific land. The data was always there — buried in ecological site descriptions and soil surveys — but nearly impossible to access without technical training.
Cowculator changes that. Draw your pasture on a map, and we pull official USDA forage production and ecological site data for your exact location in seconds. No training required.
Use the polygon or rectangle tool to outline your grazing area on our interactive map.
Cowculator queries the USDA Soil Data Access API for ecological site classifications and forage production data at your exact location.
See how many head your land can support, broken down by ecological site — not just a single rough number.
Most carrying capacity calculators ask you to input your own forage production estimates — which requires you to already know the answer. Cowculator flips that: we pull measured production data from USDA Ecological Site Descriptions so the estimate is grounded in your actual land, not a regional average.
Two fields with similar soil types can have dramatically different forage production based on slope, drainage, and plant community composition. By querying ecological site classifications, Cowculator captures those differences and surfaces them in the results.
The core calculator is completely free. No credit card, no trial period, no account required. We sustain the free tier through contextual advertising and optional premium subscriptions for users who want saved polygons, exports, and an ad-free experience.
Data sources: USDA Soil Data Access (SDA) · SSURGO Soil Survey · Ecological Site Descriptions (ESD) · NRCS Plant Database
✅ Cowculator gives you:
⚠️ Cowculator does not replace:
Questions, data corrections, partnership ideas — we'd love to hear from you.
Draw your pasture and get instant carrying capacity estimates — free, no signup needed.
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