There is sparse research literature in agricultural economics regarding early weaning as a potential alternative production/marketing strategy. The objective of this research is to estimate and analyze the impacts on net returns of alternative weaning dates for Tennessee cow-calf operations including alternative post-weaning treatments for calves. The Decision Evaluator for the Cattle Industry (DECI) simulation program was used for this study to produce outputs such as calf numbers, gender, and weights, other output including cow weights and body condition score, both at calving and at weaning, and pregnancy percentages. Forty-two simulations were run for average and summer drought weather, weaning at an average age of 135, 165, 195, 225, 255, and 285 days and selling at weaning or after a 60 or 90-day drylot backgrounding period. Prices for steers, heifers, and culled cows from 1995-2008 were taken from market reports. Costs were derived from University of Tennessee Extension Beef and Forage Budgets and USDA-NASS. The outputs from DECI were combined with prices to result in total revenues. Subtracting the costs of feed, interest, veterinary and medical, and marketing resulted in return to land, labor, management, and risk to the enterprise. The results of this study revealed that under average weather conditions in East Tennessee, marketing at weaning in November yielded the highest net return. Weaning in August and backgrounding for 60 days yielded the lowest net return with the base 90-cow herd. Under summer drought conditions, marketing at weaning in August resulted in the highest net return. Weaning in November and marketing after a 90-day backgrounding period yielded the lowest net return. Under the conditions used in this study, the only time early weaning makes economic sense is when herd size is increased for June or July weaning or under drought conditions when August (195 days) weaning and sale is optimal. Several limitations of this study imply that additional research is required on this topic before definite conclusions can be drawn.

There is sparse research literature in agricultural economics regarding early weaning as a potential alternative production/marketing strategy. The objective of this research is to estimate and analyze the impacts on net returns of alternative weaning dates for Tennessee cow-calf operations including alternative post-weaning treatments for calves.The Decision Evaluator for the Cattle Industry (DECI) simulation program was used for this study to produce outputs such as calf numbers, gender, and weights, other output including cow weights and body condition score, both at calving and at weaning, and pregnancy percentages. Forty-two simulations were run for average and summer drought weather, weaning at an average age of 135, 165, 195, 225, 255, and 285 days and selling at weaning or after a 60 or 90-day drylot backgrounding period. Prices for steers, heifers, and culled cows from 1995-2008 were taken from market reports. Costs were derived from University of Tennessee Extension Beef and Forage Budgets and USDA-NASS. The outputs from DECI were combined with prices to result in total revenues. Subtracting the costs of feed, interest, veterinary and medical, and marketing resulted in return to land, labor, management, and risk to the enterprise. The results of this study revealed that under average weather conditions in East Tennessee, marketing at weaning in November yielded the highest net return. Weaning in August and backgrounding for 60 days yielded the lowest net return with the base 90-cow herd.Under summer drought conditions, marketing at weaning in August resulted in the highest net return. Weaning in November and marketing after a 90-day backgrounding period yielded the lowest net return.Under the conditions used in this study, the only time early weaning makes economic sense is when herd size is increased for June or July weaning or under drought conditions when August (195 days) weaning and sale is optimal. Several limitations of this study imply that additional research is required on this topic before definite conclusions can be drawn.

The cattle industry is very competitive which is forcing cow-calf producers to strive for efficiency. Research has shown that as a cows mature weight increases, feed efficiency decreases, as well as reproductive efficiency and other production factors. The purpose of this paper is to (1) identify the economically optimum cow size when charging for grazing public lands on a true Animal Unit Equivalent (AUE) basis and (2) determine if the current practice of charging on a per head basis for grazing public lands has an effect on the optimal cow size. To simplify the complexity of this problem, three different resource bases common in the Intermountain West (resource base 1, time grazing = 100%; resource base 2, time grazing = 75%; and resource base 3 time grazing = 50%) were defined, as well as three different weights of cattle (small, medium and large). Grazing plans were created for each resource base and winter rations were balanced to ensure adequate nutrition and accurate budgeting. Linear programming was used to determine an optimal cow size for each resource base when charging on a per head basis and by a true AUE. When grazing on public land was charged on a true AUE basis, the small cows generated the highest net returns on all resources. Also, each resource base was able to maintain a larger number of the smaller cows than the medium or large cows under these conditions. When grazing on public lands was charge on a per head basis, as is typical, the large cow generated the greatest net returns on resource base 1 and 2. However, the small cow generated the greatest net return on resource base 3. These findings suggest that the current practice of charging for grazing public land on a per head basis does have an impact on cow size.