Understanding ADG Calculations - As of Update July 2024

On the App, the web portal and the daily email there are figures for average daily gains (kg per head per day). 

There are four things to understand so it all makes sense:

1. The ADG figures only relate to any animals weighed within the last 14 days. 
   
2. The calculations are based on a 'line of best fit' (or straight line linear regression to be precise) for all the data for each individual animal for the time period.
3. The ADGs are calculated for individual animals and then averaged across the mob (session).
   
4. The time periods work like this:
   
1. Last  14 days - at least 2 records, more than 7 days apart and the last record within the last 14 days.
   
2. Last 30 days - at least 2 records, more than 14 days apart and the last record within the last 14 days.
   
3. Last 90 days - at least 2 records, more than 30 days apart and the last record within the last 14 days.
   
4. Last 180 days - at least 2 records, more than 90 days apart and the last record within the last 14 days.
   
5. More than 180 days - at least 2 records, more than 180 days apart and the last record within the last 14 days.
   

A few of other things to note:

1. The 14 day figure can be quite volatile - because the difference between an average daily gain of 0.5 and 1.5 kg per day is 14kg - not very much considering the animals can eat and drink up to 80 kg in a day. It is a useful number because it is responsive to changes in gut fill (and so can quickly identify major changes in intake) but the 30 day figure is more generally a truer reflection of the actual rate of weight gain. 
   
2. A good way to sense check the ADG figures is to have a look at the weight chart for the mob to see if the mob average weight is moving up or day by a similar amount. If the two correlate that can give extra confidence in the ADG numbers. If they don't it's worth digging a little deeper. 
   
3. Digging deeper is best done by using the report called "Data Over Time". This is only available on the web portal and provides individual animal data which can be summarised by day, week or month for any time period. Checking that the individual animal changes in weight correlate to the summary figures can give more confidence in the numbers. 

 

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