FEED/CATTLE PRICE RELATIONSHIPS AND THE OPTIMUM SYSTEM AND LOCATION OF CATTLE FEEDING IN TEXAS

Texas has developed into a major cattle feeding competitive advantage of feeding cattle in areas of State during the past few years, mainly because of the Texas which have different feed/cattle price ratios, existing favorable feed/cattle price relationships. (2) the optimum area in which to use selected cattle These price relationships are the result of the surplus feeding systems, and (3) the optimum cattle feeding production of both grain sorghum and feeder cattle system(s) within each area selected. within the State and the demand for fed beef in Texas, in other Gulf Coast States, and in California. FEEDING SYSTEMS BUDGETED Feedlots of various sizes have been built in practically every area of Texas but the cattle feeding To meet these objectives, costs and returns were industry has become centralized in the Panhandle budgeted for 20 cattle feeding systems in four areas Area where the grain sorghum prices are generally of Texas for a 20,000 head capacity feedlot using lower because of the concentration of production; 1966-68 average prices for feed and cattle at whereas, higher prices prevail on the Gulf Coast be- Amarillo, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, and Houston. cause of export demand. However, other areas of the These four cities represent four different areas of State are not without their advantages; for example, Texas which are defined by no particular radius about most of Texas' feeder calves are produced in the the cities but by locations at which the prices of Eastern half of the State where the majority of the cattle and grain sorghum are similar to those used in State's population reside. Therefore, feeder calf prices the study. Therefore, the results presented, herein, are generally lower in that area, and slaughter cattle may be applied to other actual or potential feeding prices are higher. areas in other parts of the country where there are price relationships similar to those used in this study. In the past, feeders in the Panhandle Area generally favored systems with lengthy feeding periods and A cattle feeding system is a feeding enterprise for heavier starting weights; whereas, feeders in South which an animal's sex, grade, starting weight, and and East Texas generally used systems with lighter finishing weight have been specified. There are many starting weights and shorter feeding periods. That is, different systems from which a feeder may choose. there has been a tendency to economize in the use of The main criteria used in selecting the 20 systems was the relatively scarce input, which has been feeder the degree to which they represent actual feeding cattle in the Panhandle Area and grain in the South systems used in Texas. An attempt was made to select and East Texas Areas. The purpose of this study was systems which have different grain sorghum requireto examine the effects of this principle on the corn- ments and lengths of time on feed as reflected by the petitive position of cattle feeding systems within and system's respective feed conversion ratios and rates of between specified areas of Texas. The approach was gain. Five finishing systems, two slaughter calf systo use the linear programming framework to simul- tems, one thin slaughter cow system, two feedlot taneously determine the optimum feeding systems backgrounding systems, three pasture backgrounding both within and between areas.