LIVE STOCK breeders' ASSOCIATION. I/I 



have certain conditions to fulfill. For one thing the feeder is engaged 

 in improving the animal in such a way that it will bring the highest 

 price on the market, that is, will be finished in the best way to supply 

 -a real demand. The farmer Is also interested in finishing the animal 

 for the least expenditure of money. Two conflicting principles are 

 therefore involved in cattle feeding. We must feed the animals to 

 a point where they will fill the demands of the market. It does not 

 make any difference how much it costs. We must do that. If we are 

 in the feeding business, that presupposes that we are finishing beef 

 for the purpose of selling it, and in order to sell it we must bring it 

 to a certain finish and we want to do that at the lowest expense of 

 feed. There are these two things that we must always remember, 

 and I insist upon these two points. Why? Because a good many 

 feeders are confused in discussing this matter of the cost of pro- 

 ducing a pound of gain. The profits are frequently measured in the 

 minds of the practical feeder by the amount of grain it requires to pro- 

 duce a hundred pounds of gain, and that is not a true measure. While 

 we make an animal gain, we must at the same time be pushing him 

 toward a condition of finish. If it was only a matter of producing 

 gain in the quickest and cheapest way, we would buy the poorest and 

 thinest animals we could find that had been poorly nourished for 

 some time and fill them up. As a matter of fact, the first stages of the 

 feeding period are the cheapest, so far as the cost of producing a 

 pound of gain is concerned. 



What are some of the factors, now, which lie at the foundation 

 of the practice of finishing cattle and finishing them cheaply? There 

 jire two things that bear upon both of these questions, they are the age 

 of the animal and his condition at the time the feeding begins. 



One fact which has perhaps been more definitely demonstrated in 

 this matter of feeding than any other, is the fact that the younger the 

 animal, the less feed will be required to produce a given amount of 

 gain. It is not a mere matter of opinion now. We know a young 

 animal will produce a pound of gain with less grain than an older 

 animal of the same kind under the same conditions, and there are in 

 some cases remarkable differences. The attention of feeders was first 

 called to this fact by the men who fed the cattle for the old fat stock 

 show in Chicago. Those feeders commenced with a calf at the time 

 cf birth, began to feed it, and fed it continually for one year. They 

 exhibited it as a calf, a yearling, a two-year old and a three-year old. 

 They found that the first year the animal fed in that way required 

 about half as much to produce a pound of increase as in the second 



