Developing breeding objectives for beef cattle production - 1. A bio-economic simulation model

A deterministic simulation model was constructed to develop breeding objectives and estimate biological and economic values. The model simulates life-cycle production of a breeding cow and growth performance of her offspring. Input variables ave divided into four categories: animal traits, nutritional variables, management variables and economic variables. The economic variables assume typical beef cattle production in Japan. The outputs from the model include cow-calf performance, feedlot performance and biological and economic efficiency. The model's ability to simulate herd composition, food intake of cow and calves, cow body-weight changes, empty body and carcass composition of feedlot animals and production efficiencies is illustrated.