160 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Mr. Meyers: I have fed guaranteed 41 per cent cottonseed 

 meal for several years, but ray steers say there is a difference in 

 the meal. Is there any way in vehich the difference can be told 

 by the naked eye? 



Professor King: I like the cottonseed meal to be a light yel- 

 low rather than a reddish tint, because the red sometimes indi- 

 cates old meal. Whenever the color is a brick red, the cattle 

 usually do not like it. We have never had any particular trouble 

 with it whenever we got it a light yellow. Of course it usually 

 takes our cattle from two to five days to learn to like it. 



H. C. Wallace : How much cottonseed meal do you start them 

 on? 



Professor King: A quarter to half a pound. We have only 

 ten steers in a lot; if a man had a hundred steers in a lot, it 

 might be there would be one-half or two-thirds of them that 

 wouldn't get that much. I wouldn't recommend starting in big 

 lots on more than a quarter of a pound, but whenever you run 

 ten to twenty steers in a lot, I wouldn't be afraid to start them 

 on half a pound a day. 



Mr. Ames: I believe I can help the gentleman out on his diffi- 

 culty with that meal. We have had a little trouble that way. I 

 found on investigation that in the mills the seeds are ofttimes 

 stored, as in a silo, and they sweat and heat, and when that 

 heated seed is ground it makes a meal that the cattle don't like. 

 If you can get the fresh, bright, nut-brown meal, like our old- 

 fashioned brown sugar, you can taste it yourself, and it is just 

 as sweet as the brown sugar would be. 



I would like to ask Professor King another question: What 

 profit do you calculate a feeder can have between the purchase 

 and selling price of a drove of feeding steers at the present price 

 of feeding, using cottonseed meal, com and ensilage? 



Professor King: A thousand-pound steer at $5 a hundred 

 (that would be pretty plain cattle) would cost $50. Upon our 

 best cost per hundred pounds gain, $9.14 (we will figure $9.25 

 per hundred), if it puts on four hundred pounds gain, that four- 

 teen hundred pound steer would have to sell for about $6.70 per 

 hundred from the time he got in the lot to the time you sent him 

 back. 



Mr. Ames: You haven't taken into consideration such things 

 as interest, insurance, etc. 



