Abstract
We evaluated the influence of totally substituting soybean meal (SM) with detoxified castor cake (DCC) and two alkaline products on the economic and financial viability of producing Saanen and Anglo-Nubian goat dairy breeds with initial body weights of 16.22 +/- 0.67 kg that had been confined until they were capable of reproduction (70% of total body weight). The goats were subjected to six simulated production systems (PS). These were PS1, rearing Saanen goats that were fed with a standard diet based on SM; PS2, rearing Anglo-Nubian goats that were fed with a standard diet based on SM; PS3, rearing Saanen goats that where fed with a standard diet based on DCC Ca(OH)(2); PS4, rearing Anglo-Nubian goats that were fed with a standard diet based on DCC Ca(OH)(2); PS5, rearing Saanen goats fed with a standard diet based on DCC NaOH; and PS 6, rearing Anglo-Nubian goats that were fed with a standard diet based on DCC NaOH. A descriptive economic and financial evaluation of the data was carried out using AVETEC (R) software. The SM based diets cost approximately 58.70% and 66.22% more for the Saanen and the Anglo-Nubian goats than the other diets, respectively. The results showed that all the scenarios had a point of leveling (PL) values of less than 144 goats, which is the number of animals that can be produced annually by each system simulated in this research. The net revenue for all the systems was greater than zero, which indicated that their activities were stable and that the internal rates of return were high. The profitability indices were also very good, especially the systems that used Saanen goats, because the NPV were higher than 1 million reais. Sensitivity analyzes showed that the indicators of performance were only economically unviable under the least favorable situations, such as 30% reductions in both production and market price. The use of the DCC does not compromise the economic viability of the systems and produces higher returns than the systems that used the standard (SM) diet.