Live Stock Breeders' Association. 141 



Baby Beef — For this class of men there can be no argument 

 concerning the advantages of pushing the animals along as rapidly 

 as possible and marketing them as baby beef. It is from the stand- 

 point of this man, and not from the view-point of the professional 

 feeder who buys his animals when they are ready to put in the 

 feed yard, that this matter will be briefly considered. It was clearly 

 pointed out in a previous annual report of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture* that these professional feeders prefer animals of reasonable 

 maturity because they fatten more rapidly, more uniformly, more 

 certainly, and require somewhat less attention to the niceties of 

 feeding. These men, in buying feeders, are indifferent to the ques- 

 tion as to what they may have cost the man to raise them, so long 

 as they may buy them ready to be put in the feed pen, dehorned, 

 vaccinated against blackleg, etc., with sufficient margin to fully 

 or practically offset the additional cost in the gains required to be 

 made in fitting them for market. 



The attitude of this professional feeder toward the matter of 

 baby beef is not a safe guide for the raiser of cattle and should 

 really not influence in the slightest his practice. The two men sus- 

 tain a radically different relation to the problem, and each should 

 be controlled by his own set of conditions. The one thing which 

 has contributed more than any other to the haziness and confusion 

 of the whole matter has been our failure to define sharply this dif- 

 ference. One in buying his feeders can overcome the handicap age 

 imposes upon the cost of gains, but the raiser of cattle has no such 

 recourse and must squarely face the issue of paying for every day 

 the animal lives, whether it gain, stand still, or lose in weight. 



Obviously the man who raises cattle on high priced land 

 should feed them out as baby beef, and would have occasion to 

 raise and feed in the same connection a large number of hogs, the 

 legume area being especially adapted to the growing and finish- 

 ing of hogs with a minimum loss from disease and with a maximum 

 profit. 



For a man so situated to try to keep his steers over to be 

 grazed the second summer as yearlings, and especially to hold them 

 through the second winter merely for the opportunity to full feed 



*For an extended discussion of the baby beef proposition from the standpoint of the 

 professional feeder, as distinguished from the cattle raiser, see an article by the writer en- 

 titled "Limitations of Bo by Beef Production, " 89th Annual Report of the Missouri State 

 Board of Agriculture, pp. 114-166. Also bulletin 70, Missouri Experiment Station, p. 29. 

 Also a bulletin of the Missouri Experiment Station soon to be published, by Professor F. 

 B. Mumford, reporting in detail the results of eight years of careful feeding experiments 

 with cattle of different ages at this station. 



