Technical and economic optimum in feedlot cattle

the beef cattle producers in the southern zone of the state of mexico generally do not carry out adequate market planning of their finished steers. in addition, they lack technical and administrative management in their productive units, focused on the use of efficient input, which has prevented them from maximizing their monetary profits. the present investigation was made to estimate the technical (tol) and economic optimum levels (eol) of feedlot beef cattle, using two cubic production functions with decreasing marginal yields. one hundred steers of bos taurus x bos indicus were used, with live weight at the start of fattening of 290 ± 15 kg, age 21 to 24 months, fattened in feedlots during 93 days consuming a totally mixed diet (crude protein: 133.33, fdn: 237.44, fda 114.33 g/kg dm and 2.62 mcal/kg of dm of metabolizable energy) to estimate both functions (tol and eol), weight gain was considered as independent variable. for the first production function, feed intake was taken as independent variable and in the second function, time defined in days. for the first production function the tol was 475.04 and the eol was 473.94 kg live weight; with a daily feed intake of 12.58 and 12.36 kg/day. for the second production function the tol was 475.01 and the eol was 460.21kg of live weight, with a period of 93.29 and 77.21 days. the optimal point of sale and the maximum gain is obtained with the second production function, when the animals reach a live weight of 460.21 kg during a feeding period of 77.21 days.