Assessment of economic risks of nutrient supplementation treatments that are evaluated in grazing experiments could provide worthwhile information on profit potential of a given supplement. A procedure was developed to statistically analyze economic efficiency of additional ADG over a range of potential supplement costs and determine the maximum supplement cost that falls below the breakeven point for low, intermediate and high cattle selling prices. An analysis was performed on average daily gain data collected with steers grazing bermudagrass for an experiment that measured responses to supplementation rate with ground corn (0, 1, 3, and 5 Ibs/steer/d) and for another experiment that compared supplementation with ground corn for 112 d of the grazing season to supplementation with corn for the last 56 d of the season. A supplementation rate of 3 lb corn/steer/d resulted in costs of additional ADG that were below the breakeven point for the three cattle selling prices over the full range of corn costs (90 to 200 dollars/ton. Staying at or below the breakeven point with 1 and 5 lb supplementation rates required low corn costs (<= 100 dollars/ton) with low cattle selling prices and slightly higher corn costs (<= 130 dollars/ton) with intermediate cattle selling prices. Although ADG was higher with corn supplementation over 112 d of the grazing season than with supplementation restricted to the last 56 d of the season, costs of additional ADG for both treatments were below the breakeven point for each cattle selling price and over the range of corn costs. Analyses of the ADG responses to corn supplementation indicated a capability of feasibility of using the procedure to assess economic risks associated with the corn supplementation treatments.
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