FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI. 353 



CATTLE. 



AN IOWA FEEDER'S EXPERIENCE. 



Orviile Lee, Sac County, in Breeders^ Gazette. 



As to the buying, breeding, handling and feeding of the fifty-two steers 

 which I sold on the Chicago market May 23d at $5.10 per cwt,, I am glad 

 to furnish such information as I am in possession of regarding these cattle, 

 for I can assure you that I have been very much benefited by the experience 

 of many of your contributors as I have read their articles in your journal. I 

 shall be much pleased if anything in this experience shall suggest a thought 

 that will be of benefit to any brother feeder. 



The fifty-two steers were a part of a bunch of one hundred and eighty 

 steers purchased by my brother Lamont Lee and myself in the vicinity of 

 Sac City, Iowa, during the months of February, March and April of 1903, 

 most of the bunch being bought during the month of April. The one 

 hundred and eighty head were placed in a well drained twenty-acre lot and 

 fed on good tame hay and corn fodder until grass time, May 8th, when they 

 were weighed and divided into two bunches as nearly even as could be, my 

 brother taking one bunch of ninety and myself the other. The average 

 weight of this bunch was seven hundred and eight pounds at this time and 

 we settled any difference which might appear in the two bunches at an 

 agreed price of four cents per pound. We thought this to be a fair market 

 value for them at that time, and in making any calculations as to profit or 

 loss I shall figure from this basis. 



A word herein regard to dividing these cattle into two bunches: we 

 placed the whole bunch in a feed-yard and the hired men were instructed to 

 bring them to the scales in bunches of six. Each draft after being weighed 

 was placed alternately in two yards, after which we flipped coppers to see 

 which should have the north yard and which the south one. On comparing 

 weights we found that there was just thirty pounds difference in the weight 

 of the two bunches. The ninety cattle which fell to me were placed May 

 9th in a good clover and blue grass pasture, where they remained until 

 November 1st, when they were put on a field of after-grass; when the 

 weather turned cold in December they were driven to the yard with a shed 

 at night and given a light feed of fodder, corn and all, until January 2, 1904. 

 During this last month they consumed fifteen acres of good corn. On 

 January 2d they were placed in a feed-yard with good open sheds, hay- 

 racks and self-feeders and during the next ten days were worked up to a full 

 feed of shelled corn and oilmeal, mixed four pounds of meal to every bushel 

 of shelled corn. This was placed in the self-feeders and the ration was never 

 changed except that a light feed of ear corn was given occasionally. For 

 roughness they were given all the wild hay, tame hay and oat straw they 

 would clean up and on cold mornings a feed of corn fodder. Every steer in 

 the lot made a good even growth and the fifty-two head averaged one 

 thousand three hundred and nineteen pounds in Chicago on the day they 

 were sold. 



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