A livestock unit (LU) is a way of comparing different animals on the same footing. Widely used coefficients:
- Dairy or suckler cow — 1.0 LU.
- Cattle 1–2 years — about 0.7 LU; under 1 year — about 0.4 LU.
- Ewe or goat — about 0.1 LU.
- Breeding sow — about 0.5 LU; horse — about 0.8 LU.
Stocking rate is total LU divided by hectares. What is sensible depends hugely on grass quality, soil, rainfall and supplementary feed, so treat any headline figure with caution and ask on the forums what works locally. The stocking calculator does the sums.