TRADE-OFF BETWEEN COW NUMBERS, CALF SIZE, AND SALE DATE INCORPORATING SEASONAL FACTORS AND SUPPLEMENTAL FEEDING

2001 181 Rigid sale dates are sometimes adopted to take advantage of seasonal forage availability or aggregate numbers for a given sale to attract more buyers. Arizona ranchers that primarily depend on winter rains for forage typically sell their calves in the spring while regions that most heavily depend upon monsoon rains for forage (e.g., southeast Arizona) sell in the fall. Both regions sell mainly according to the time of year, irrespective of the weight of their calves and very few supplement calves to increase their calf weights. Because ranchers often question the economic trade-offs between sale calf weights, herd size, rates of gain, and feeding supplement with a spring versus fall sale date, our primary objective is to analyze these issues.