Scholarship & Research
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Item An economic comparison of breeding performance of yearling and two-year-old bulls(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1990) Carroll, Llane Glenn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: R. Clyde Greer.An important decision a rancher makes is the age at which a bull will first be used for breeding. While yearling bulls are used by many ranchers in the Great Plains States, there is concern that lack of maturity among yearling bulls leads to lower breeding performance. To compare the breeding performance of yearling and two-year-old bulls Line One Hereford bulls in single sire breeding herds at Fort Keogh Livestock and Range Research Laboratory (LARRL) were analyzed. Tests for differences in pregnancy rates, calving dates, calf birth weight, and calf average daily gain were conducted. The physical attribute distributions were converted to a returns distribution for each age of bull. The distributions were then compared in a stochastic dominance framework. From the results it was concluded that the alternative "use the bull first as a two-year-old" dominated the alternative "use the bull first as a yearling" in the first order stochastic sense. While ranchers are using yearling bulls, the expected income is higher and the dispersion of observed income smaller from herds bred to two-year-old bulls. Ranchers may be deriving other benefits from the use of yearling bulls such as decreased intervals for introducing special genetic traits. Ranchers may be using yearlings in multiple sire settings which may diminish the downside risk of using yearling bulls as compared to using yearling bulls in single sire settings.Item An economic evaluation of confinement sheep production in the northern Rocky Mountains and the northwestern Great Plains(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1984) Smith, H. Arlen (Henry Arlen); Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Myles Watts.Confinement sheep production is currently the subject of considerable research effort and commercial investment. This study evaluates the economic potential of confinement sheep production for the region of the Northern Rocky Mountains and the Northwestern Great Plains. The extent and composition of confinement sheep production within the region is surveyed. The main elements available to alternative sheep production systems are cataloged, and the ramifications of each element for different systems are estimated. Four sheep production systems representative of the range of alternatives are defined and budgeted. These four systems are economically evaluated by means of multi-period simulation. Sensitivity analysis is used both to replicate variations in the four systems and to measure the importance of variations in the budget estimates. It is concluded that a major transition to confinement production is unlikely under current conditions. However, confinement production can be a viable alternative under certain circumstances. It is also demonstrated that marginal tax rates are important factors in determining net profitability and should be included in economic evaluations of production alternatives.