EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK -PART X. 553 



This means that the feeding operation must begin with the calf at 

 weaning time and continue without internn tlon until the calf is fat. 

 Some even go farther and begin the feeding poriod as soon as the calf 

 is old enough to eat and while it is still running with its dam, and place 

 these animals on the market fully fat at the beginning of June or July, 

 fourteen or fifteen months of age, and weighing from 800 to 1,100 pounds. 



Heavy Cattle Made. — There are a number of reasons why the breeder 

 still insists on making rather heavier cattle, notwithstanding the fact that 

 it costs considerably more to carry them to this age and that it costs 

 somewhat more per pound to finish them after they are brought to this 

 point. First is the fact that the cattle feeder is, as a rule, not a cattle 

 raiser. At least he raises a very small portion of the cattle he feeds. 

 The cattle raiser, on the other hand, is, as a rule, not a cattle feeder, 

 seldom feeding even those of his own raising. The raising of cattle and 

 the fitting of them for the market are two separate and independent 

 operations, conducted as a rule by two different men, each operating 

 independently of the other and the one not especially interested in the 

 scope or outcome of the other's operations. 



The cattle feeder is interested in the cattle raiser only to the extent 

 of having him supply him with animals of the proper quality and at such 

 prices as will enable him to fit them for market with a profit. This means 

 that under the conditions prevailing in the feeder and stocker market, 

 in recent years at least, the younger animal in an unfinished condition 

 sell for enough more per pound to, in a considerable measure, counter- 

 balance any advantage it maj^ possess in the cost required to make it 

 fat. Or, stated differently, the older animals may be bought for enough 

 less per pound to overcome a considerable part of the excess cost per 

 pound required to finish them for the market. Or, in feeders' parlance, 

 the margin of profit in feeding older cattle is greater than in feeding 

 younger ones. 



This may be illustrated by statistics furnished Dr. Waters by a 

 number of experienced feeders in Central Missouri who were interviewed 

 on this point. Taking calves as a quality which in the fall (October 1) 

 would be worth say five cents per pound, or would bring twenty-five per 

 head, as a basis, cattle of the different ages could be bought, one year 

 with another, at the following prices: Yearlings, $3.75 per hundred; 

 two-year-olds, $4.00 per hundred; three-year-olds, $4.25 per hundred. 



These same cattle the next spring would stand the feeder, in the judg- 

 ment of these men, on the basis of the same market as in the fall, as 

 follows: Yearling (which are the calves referred to above), $5.00 per 

 hundred; two-year-olds, $4.50 per hundred; three-year-olds, from $4.75 

 to $5.00 per hundred. 



Older, Less Fat Required. — According to Dr. Waters, it seems to be 

 a well-established law in the cattle trade that the older and larger the 

 animal is the less fat beyond a certain point it is required to sell well up 

 toward the top of the market for its class. It not infrequently occurs 

 that heavy three-year-olds will bring the top of the market with heavy 

 cattle, while a yearling equally as fat would not sell within fifty cents of 

 the market and might even be classed on the market as a well-advanced 

 feeder rather than as a fat steer. One cannot fail to be impressed with 



