382 Feeds and Feeding. 



method is wasteful and could be immensely improved by grinding 

 the grain. "No one can study the Western situation without be- 

 coming impressed with the belief that the better class of these 

 feeders are, after all, about right in this practice. Corn is never 

 so acceptable to a steer as when unhusked. There is a freshness 

 und palatability about an ear of corn wrapt in Nature' s covering 

 which every steer recognizes and shows by the eagerness with 

 which he consumes it. 



Feeding shock corn is a satisfactory practice in many instances, 

 for the crop is then handled with the least labor. The fodder 

 with its wealth of ears is thrown into long feed racks standing in 

 an open lot or under a shed, the steers doing the husking and 

 grinding. Some fodder is eaten, and the waste ears and grains 

 are eagerly picked up by shotes running with the steers. 



Snapped corn, i. e. , ears severed from the stalks but still wrapt 

 in the husks, is successfully used for steer feeding. Husked ear 

 corn is extensively fed, though the grains are not so fresh as in 

 the two forms named above and are not always so acceptable 

 because of another condition, viz., hardness of the grains. Corn 

 in the crib exposed to the dry air of the West often becomes very 

 hard and the grains injure the mouth of the steer in the process 

 of mastication. To avoid this difficulty the ears are chopped or 

 broken into pieces or fed after soaking. Soaking does not render 

 the grain more digestible, but enables the steer to crush it with 

 more ease and often to consume a larger quantity. 



Trials at the Stations show that corn meal gives larger gains 

 with steers than the same weight of unground grain. It is prob- 

 able also that meal permits of a higher finish with steers than 

 unground corn. Practical experience and studies by the Stations 

 show that pigs following steers fed corn meal get very little from 

 the droppings; not because such droppings are without nutri- 

 ment, but rather because the meal in the droppings is in a form 

 which cannot be utilized by the pig. 



Eeviewing the subject from the standpoint of experiment and 

 practice, the writer is of the opinion that where corn is cheap the 

 Western custom of feeding it whole to steers with lively shotes 

 following is the most economical, all things considered, if ration- 



