Cattle Value Discovery System

Description

Several segments in the beef industry throughout the world are in transition to managing and marketing cattle individually in feedlots to reduce excess fat produced, increase consistency and quality of products, enhance productivity, and increase economic returns. Therefore, individual cattle management systems are being developed to facilitate marketing individual animals at their optimum economical endpoint, considering live and carcass incremental cost of gain and carcass prices for various grades, and avoiding discounts.

The Cornell/Cattle Value Discovery System model represents an evolution of a growth model first published by Fox and Black (1984) to account for differences in breed type and mature size in predicting performance and profitability of feedlot cattle with alternative management systems. Modifications over the past 25 years have been made to improve its accuracy to account for more of the variation in nutrient requirements and performance of growing beef cattle (Fox et al., 1988; Fox et al., 1992; Tylutki et al., 1994; Fox and Tylutki, 1998). The model as described by Fox et al. (2000) was adapted by the National Research Council for beef (NRC, 1996, 2000) and dairy cattle (NRC, 2001). The model as described by Fox et al. (2004) for growing and lactating beef cattle was used to develop a continuous model to predict responses of dual purpose cattle over the reproductive cycle (Reynoso-Campos et al., 2004).

The CVDS was developed for use in individual cattle management for growing beef cattle. The CVDS provides (1) prediction of daily gain, incremental cost of gain and days to finish to optimize profits and marketing decisions while marketing within the window of acceptable carcass weights and composition, (2) predictions of carcass composition during growth to avoid discounts for under or over weight carcasses and excess backfat, and (3) allocation of feed fed to pens to individual animals for the purpose of sorting of individuals into pens by days to reach target body composition and maximum individual profitability. This allows mixed ownership of individuals in pens, determination of individual animal cost of gain for the purposes of billing feed and predicting incremental cost of gain, and providing information that can be used to select for feed efficiency and profitability.

Top Top

Download

windows 7 logo

windows 10 logo

chip
32 bit and 64 bit
Compatible


The CVDS is programmed in Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 and it works with most IBM-PC compatible computers that have Microsoft Windows XP or later.

A computer with the following configuration is suggested for satisfactory performance: 2 GHz Intel Core Due (or similar) with at least 2 Gb of RAM. A CD/DVD-ROM for installation from CD media, an IBM-PC compatible printer to print reports, and an internet connection for updating and registration.

For the Import/Export functionality from/to spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel™ (or compatible spreadsheet software) is required. For advanced database manipulation, Microsoft Access™ (or compatible database software) is recommended.

The current version of the Cattle Value Discovery System is 1.1.5.


Download

Previous versions can be downloaded from here.

Top Top

Registration

The CVDS will expires after 10 uses if not registered by the end of the grace period. You can register your copy by submitting the registration number in the Purchase page. Registration codes will not be given out until the cost of registering your copy is paid in full.

Purchase Register

Top Top

Developers


Dr. Luis O. Tedeschi

Dr. Luis O. Tedeschi
Professor
Texas A&M University
Department of Animal Science
230 Kleberg Center
2471 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-2471
US

Texas A&M University Logo
Dr. Danny G. Fox

Dr. Danny G. Fox
Emeritus Professor
Cornell University

Cornell University Logo
Dr. Michael J. Baker

Dr. Michael J. Baker
Beef Extension Specialist
Cornell University
Department of Animal Science
124 Morrison Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
US

Cornell University Logo

Top Top

support

Additional references are listed in the Publications web page.

Top Top

Links

  • The user's guide is a PDF file that contains all the screens of the CVDS model and detailed explanation on how to use the model.

  • The CVDS manual is a PDF file that contains a description of the model, tutorial, and the equations used to develop the model.

Beef Cattle Management

Residual Feed Intake

Top Top

 
Custom Search