Home

Hello there! Welcome to this website!

This website is for two models both modelling the population and behavior of beef cattle. One of the models was built on AgentCubes and the other on Vensim.

AgentCubes Model:

Click to Access in web browser

HLD

Description:

This model shows the relationship between grass and beef cattle. There are two states of grass: healthy and dead. There are three life stages of cows: baby, young, and adult. Cows will move through life cycles after a certain amount of time steps. Adult cows will be slaughtered for beef output at a certain time step. Young cows and adult cows will have a chance of reproducing a baby cow. Healthy grass can change into dead grass if a cow is on it for too long. Dead grass can regrow into healthy grass if it is untouched for a certain amount of time steps. At different stages of life, cows will have different have different hunger levels. If a cow is on dead grass for too long, it will starve to death after a certain amount of time steps (depending on life stage). A graph plots the population of healthy grass, dead grass, baby cows, young cows, adult cows, and beef output. A slider bar can change the birth chance.

How to Use the Model

  1. Click Edit
  2. Change the speed of the model with a slider bar at the top of the page
  3. To access the slider bar, first click the edit button. Then, go to settings, and then "show simulation properties". This will display a window where you have access to the slider bar.
  4. Press the play button.

Agents:

Screenshots:

Vensim Model:

Click to Download

HLD

Behaviors

  1. Rate arrow pointing to box variable “baby cows”: called birth
  2. Rate arrow from “baby cows” pointing to “young cows”: called aging
  3. Rate arrow from “young cows” pointing to “adult cows”: called aging 2
  4. Rate arrow from “adult cows” to “beef output”: called slaughter
  5. Rate arrow from “adult cows” to cloud: called death
  6. The constants time, slaughter fraction and birth fraction affect rates
  7. Cows affect the change rate from healthy grass to dead grass
  8. Healthy grass has a rate to go to dead grass and dead grass has a rate to regrow to healthy grass
  9. Two graphs display the amount of dead grass, healthy grass, baby cows, young cows, adult cows, and beef output

How to Use the Model

  1. Click the "SyntheSim" button at the top of the page
  2. Use the slider bars to change the values of variables