Live Stock Breeders' Association. 171 



of the practice in these regards, the reader is referred to the re- 

 marks of the different feeders in the main tables under the head of 

 Methods of Feeding. 



MORE PREPARATION OF GRAIN REQUIRED FOR YOUNG CATTLE THAN 



FOR AGED ANIMALS. 



This is almost self-evident. Three year old steers, for example, 

 can handle ear corn and coarse roughage far more advantageously 

 than can calves, say, that are just being weaned. It is not at all 

 difficult to make a fair rate of gain on young animals, and to ac- 

 complish only this result would not require any special preparation 

 of grain. But to make a gain that is sufficiently rapid to fatten 

 the animal within reasonable time does require that the grain be 

 offered in an easily assimilable form and that the roughage be of 

 a very palatable and nutritious character. In other words, as has 

 already been pointed out, the first draft a young animal will make 

 on its food, outside of maintenance, is for growth, and it is neces- 

 sary to induce the animal to eat and digest an amount considerably 

 in excess of the requirement for maintenance and for growth in 

 order to make it fat. The aged steer, on the other hand, has little 

 use for food for growth, and puts practically its entire ration, out- 

 side of that required for maintenance, to the uses of fat produc- 

 tion, and it is not, therefore, so vital a matter that the animal gain 

 to the absolute limit of its capacity in order to get fat in a reason- 

 able time or to prove profitable. Thus it comes about in practice 

 that the feeders use ear corn for aged cattle, and crushed or ground 

 or soaked or shelled corn for calves and yearlings. 



Hogs Utilize the Waste — It will be noted that all of the dis- 

 cussion of this factor has so far been with relation to the influence 

 of foods prepared in different ways upon the rate of gain of the 

 steer, rather than upon the degree to which it is digested and 

 utilized. This is so because hogs are invariably used to pick up 

 whatever waste may occur from imperfect preparation of the feed 

 before it is offered to the cattle. As a rule, hogs are worth more 

 per pound live weight than are cattle. It is, therefore, a matter of 

 comparative indifference to the feeder as to just how the uses of 

 the grain are distributed between the steer and the hog. 



The feeder is only interested in the total gain in live weight 

 per unit of grain fed, and cannot, under ordinary farm conditions, 

 afford to invest much labor and money in a preparation of the 

 feed which increases the steer gains wholly or mainly at the ex- 



