200 Feeds and Feeding. 



plants are woody and loaded with alkali. It should be cut when 

 in bloom and quickly stacked. 



296. Cacti. In western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, various 

 cacti, principally prickly pear, Opuntia, spp., growing wild on the 

 ranges, are used for feeding cattle, especially during periods of 

 drought. Cacti grow but slowly unless the soil is good and there is 

 reasonable rainfall during some part of the year. Because of its 

 peculiar structure and habits this plant can survive protracted 

 drought, tho it makes little or no growth at such times. Under 

 favorable conditions the prickly pear may be harvested about once in 

 5 years. In Texas Mexican teamsters make free use of the pear for 

 feeding their work oxen, and some rangemen have fed large quan- 

 tities along with sorghum and cotton seed or cotton-seed meal to 

 their fattening cattle. Cacti may be fed where they grow by first 

 singeing off the spines with a gasoline torch, after which the cattle 

 eat them with apparent satisfaction. Under favorable conditions a 

 man can singe the spines from 6 to 12 tons of standing ''pears" per 

 day. In some cases the pears are gathered in wagons and put thru 

 machines which chop them in such manner that the spines are ren- 

 dered more or less harmless. 



The prickly pear ranges in value from one of the least valuable 

 of feeds to about the equal of the mangel beet. The full-grown steer 

 requires from 125 to 200 Ibs. of the pear daily, and the dairy cow 

 should have from 40 to 70 Ibs., along with some other more nutri- 

 tious feed, for she cannot maintain a flow of milk on the pear alone. 

 Cotton seed, cotton-seed meal, and sorghum hay go well with the 

 pear. Griffiths 1 found that cactus-fed steers made an average gain 

 of 1.75 Ibs. each per day, requiring 55 Ibs. of pear and 2.5 Ibs. of 

 cotton-seed meal for each Ib. of gain. When fed with rice bran and 

 cotton-seed meal, about 6 Ibs. of fresh pears equaled 1 Ib. of dry 

 sorghum hay in feeding value for the dairy cow. 



Spineless cacti have long been known and grown in Mexico. These 

 cacti cannot survive on the range because cattle will graze and de- 

 stroy them. On the other hand, in its wild state the prickly cactus 

 is able to grow and hold its own on the ranges of the Southwest. 

 When pasture is reasonably abundant the animals do not feed on the 

 cacti, so that when serious droughts come on, this forage is avail- 

 able and proves most valuable. It seems reasonable to hold that in 



1 U. S. Dept. Agr., Bur. Anim. Indus., Bui. 91. 



