The experiment was conducted with the purpose of evaluating the economic return of the feedlot finishing of steers fed with silages from different sorghum hybrids: AGX-213 and 2002 (forage); AGX-217 and AG-2005E (double-purpose). Forty-eight steers with an average age of 19 months and average live weight of 316 kg were used. The roughage:concentrate ratio was 63:37, for all the diets tested. The silages cost was 15.13; 13.53; 18.55 and 20.20 R$/t, for AGX-213, AG-2002 e AG-2005, respectively. The live weight gain/ha estimated and based on the silage production/ha was 1879.9; 2038.3; 1609.9 and 1912.5kg. The cost/kg of weight gain in R$ was 0.770; 0.759; 0.780 and 0.635, resulting a net income of 432.38; 491.23; 354.18 and 698.06 R$/ha. The silage of the forage hybrids, AG-2002 and AGX-213 showed the lowest production cost; however, the inclusion of the double-purpose AG-2005E silage in the diet of feedlot steers determines higher economical return for the production system.
animal performance; double-purpose sorghum; forage sorghum; production cost
