Considerable efforts have been made to provide cow-calf producers with
information to help them make informed decisions about adding value to
calves. Despite demonstrated market incentives to retain calves, many
producers still sell right after weaning. We postulate this observed
behavior is related to producer risk aversion. Our study concludes risk
aversion is an important factor affecting calf retention as the most
risk-averse producers have more than a 60% probability of selling calves at
weaning and the most risk tolerant have less than a 20% probability of
selling at weaning.