Compensatory Growth and Slaughter Breakevens of Yearling Cattle

A two-year summary of growing/ finishing systems indicates that steer calves wintered at 1.5 lb/day had lower slaughter breakeven (P \u3c .05) costs compared to animals wintered at 0.5 lb/day. Additionally, feeding wet corn gluten feed as an energy source to increase winter gains tended (P \u3c .15) to produce slaughter breakevens which were lower than the same winter gains produced by feeding corn. Restricting animal gain over the winter (0.5-1.0 lb/day) resulted in 25-32% compensation on grass compared to controls (1.5 lb/day). Comparison of calf finishing vs. yearling growing/finishing systems showed that steers wintered with a “fast” rate of gain (1.5 lb/day) profited $28.85/head compared to losses by steers wintered with a “slow” rate of gain (0.5 lb/day; $-30.24/head) or calf finishing ($-20.87/head)