The productive and economic response of four feeding systems during the productive cycle of beef cattle raised and finished in tropical pastures was evaluated in this research. The data on supplement intake and performance of the animals were obtained from six experiments using 196 grazing animals. The evaluated supplementation strategies was based on the slaughter age of the animals (18, 24, 30, and 40 months), simulating a ideal system of production with area of 1.000 ha and annual average carrying capacity of 1 AU/ha/year. The annual average weight of the slaughtered animals at 18, 24, 30 and 40 months of age was of 0.76, 0.48, 0.35, and 0.23 kg/animal/day, respectively, and provided the following of cycles of production numbers (120, 0.75, 0.55, and 0.38 cycles/year). The 40 mo slaughter age was the only supplementation strategy that showed negative gross margin, indicating short-term in sustainability in this system. The annual net margin was positive for the slaughter ages 18 (R$ 220,766, 39) and 30 months (R$ 80,395. 24) and negative for 24 months of slaughter age. The high intake of supplement and the concentration of this intake in a phase of worse feed conversion was the causes of the worse economic response obtained with the slaughter age of 24 months in relation to slaughter age of 18 and the 30 mo. The return taxes of the invested capital with land (TRC), 5.48 (18 mo), -1.60 (24 mo), 1.16 (30 mo) and -1.67% a year (40 mo) indicated that only the slaughter age of 18 mo allows the carry on of the enterprise in a long run. The biggest productive response to this strategy, in reason of the lesser daily level of supplementation and of the supply concentrated of in a phase of bigger feed efficiency, explains the best economic results. However, the choice of the best supplementation strategy depends on favorable combinations of relative prices of the supplements and could be defined by the difference in the TRC in relation to the absence of supplementation, estimate for each strategy.
beef cattle; nutritional plan; production systems; profitability
