Economic effects of alternate growth path, time of calving and breed type combinations across southern Australian beef cattle environments: feedlot finishing at the New South Wales experimental site

Abstract

Abstract. The 'Regional Combinations' project and its biophysical outcomes have been described in several other papers in this special edition. The information provided in these papers allows an evaluation of the most profitable beef cattle production systems across different environments in southern Australia. In this paper, the focus is on the New South Wales experimental site where the trial animals were finished in a feedlot. The data identified liveweight gain as the biggest driver of profitability of production. Between growth treatments, there was a large difference in the gross margins before feedlot entry between the 'fast' and 'slow' treatments favouring the fast-grown animals, even after accounting for the higher cost of producing pasture capable of sustaining faster growth. However, the slow growth treatments consistently outperformed the fast growth treatments in the feedlot. In terms of breeds, the European breed types consistently outperformed the Wagyu breeds. There were no time-of-calving experiments in New South Wales.

Performance of steer progeny of sires differing in genetic potential for fatness and meat yield following postweaning growth at different rates. 2. Carcass traits

“…Scope to alter carcass traits by nutritional management (manipulating growth rate after weaning) was also demonstrated. Although this produced fewer and smaller responses than by genetic means, it may have a large effect on enterprise profitability as discussed by Davies et al (2009) in a companion paper.…”

Influence of post-weaning management system during the finishing phase on grasslands or feedlot on aiming to improvement of the beef cattle production

“…At large production scales, technologies like ultrasonography can help to inform the decision-making process based on the composition of the carcass, but such technologies are usually not available to or feasible for small-scale farmers. Davies et al (2009) discussed the increase in costs caused by an increase in the feedlot time, when long periods are necessary to reach slaughter weight. These authors concluded that bulls with greater ADG require less time for finishing, and consequently generate lower production costs.…”

Quantification of cow milk yield and pre-weaning calf growth response in temperate pasture-based beef suckler systems: A meta-analysis

“…A higher pre-weaning growth rate and WW of beef calves is generally a key factor determining the profitability of beef production systems (Davies et al, 2009;Taylor et al, 2018). Calf pre-weaning growth was markedly different between the cow genotypes and is determined by both "maternal" (mainly due to milk production) and by direct genetic (growth capacity transmitted to calves) effects, as well as environmental factors (Cortés-Lacruz et al, 2017;Walmsley et al, 2018).…”