What are your profit drivers?
Meat & Livestock Australia January 16, 2024
Profit in a cattle enterprise is influenced by both income and costs. The opportunities to increase income and/or decrease the cost of production are known as profit drivers.
Consider the profit drivers for your production system. For example, are they:
- An increase in weaning percentage? (e.g. improve fertility and calving attributes)
- An increase in sale liveweight? (e.g. improve growth)
- A higher MSA index? (e.g. improve carcase attributes)
- An increase in feed efficiency to decrease herd emissions?
Each profit driver is influenced by genetics and environmental factors. Therefore, profit drivers can be matched to an underlying genetic trait. These genetic traits are represented by BREEDPLAN EBVs.
To balance all profit drivers important in your production system, selection indexes have been developed.
BREEDPLAN EBVs and selection indexes will be discussed in more detail in Modules 3, 4 and 5.