Tools Available to Calculate Cost of Production

CowProfit$

For many years, Western Beef utilized a software program called CowProfit$ that was developed by Alberta Agriculture and Forestry as a "little brother" to AgriProfit$. CowProfit$ is geared towards cow-calf producers and was used by Western Beef to generate cost of production benchmarks for the province until 2012. The software was upgraded in 2016 to be compatible with today's computer operating systems.

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The program is pre-populated with JJD Cattle Company's (John & Jane Doe's) data, a fictitious 100 female cow-calf operation that raises its own replacements, backgrounds some of its calves, makes hay and owns pasture. Their cost of production for the cow-calf enterprise is $650 per cow wintered and their unit cost of production (break-even on calves) is $1.33 per lb with a 540 lb average wean weight. With an example operation, producers can learn the basics of how the calculator works before entering their own information.