M. Peter Hoffman

The Impact of Alternative Objectives on Feedlot Rations for Beef Steers

The specification of an objective receives little attention in most agricultural production analyses. Despite general agreement among agricultural economists that few, if any, farmers are motivated exclusively by magnitude of profits, it is common simply to assume an objective of profit maximization. (Anderson, Dillon, Hardaker; Heady and Dillon). Use of this objective is sufficient for some analyses. For other analyses, however, the observed diversity of production practices makes this simple approach inappropriate. Beef production falls into the latter category. Even if we ignore beef marketed as mature animals from the culling of breeding herds, the diversity of production practices is obvious. A 20,000-head commercial feedlot manager on the Texas plains and an Iowa farmer feeding 100 head per year do not operate similarly and probably are not motivated by the same objectives. We attempt to quantify some of the objectives that are relevant for various groups of beef producers and to analyze the impact of these alternative objectives on beef production strategies. Five alternative objectives are defined for the feeding of a roughage (corn silage) and a corn-grain-based concentrate to beef steers to produce carcass weight gain. Additionally, using a fixed initial age and carcass weight (196 kg) and a fixed final carcass weight (295 kg), each objective is evaluated for a specific gain or over a fixed region of the response surface (see Melton). The assumption of a fixed slaughter weight is generally consistent with production of animals of a fixed U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) quality grade. It is appropriate to apply the analyses to carcass weight gain because the lower digestibility of roughages causes a greater portion of live weight to be undigested feed rather than beef.