264 



PRODUCTIVE FEEDING OF FARM ANIMALS 



1000-pound feeders in a six months' period, use thirty to sixty days 

 for getting cattle to full grain ration, allowing free access to all 

 the roughage the cattle will take at the beginning, and gradually 

 decreasing the amount of roughage as the grain is increased. With 

 two- and three-year-old cattle that are finished on grass, 120 days 

 of full feeding are usually sufficient to put such cattle in satisfactory 

 marketable condition after they have been carried sixty to ninety 

 days on light grain rations. 



" Grade and Condition of Feeding Cattle Used. The quality or 

 breeding of the cattle has a direct bearing upon the proper length 

 of the fattening period. Common cattle of the lower grades and 

 plainer sorts are not susceptible to the same high finish that can be 

 given well-bred cattle, hence it is useless to feed them for it. Low- 

 grade feeders finish quicker than those of high grade at the same 

 weights and in the same condition, because they are older (Fig. 61). 



"Age of Feeding Cattle Used. In ordinary practice it takes 

 three to four months to finish mature feeders, five to seven months 

 for two-year-olds, eight to ten months for yearlings, and ten to 

 eighteen months for calves." 



Returns for Feed Eaten. Information secured from cattle 

 men in the corn belt by the Illinois station shows that the amounts 

 of grain (corn or its equivalent) and hay required to produce 100 

 pounds gain in case of steers of different ages in winter and summer 

 are, on the average, as follows: 12 



Feed Required for 100 Pounds Gain with Steers of Different Ages 



According to a common rule of feeders, it takes 1000 pounds 

 grain and 500 pounds rough feed per 100 pounds gain in the feed 

 lot; the averages of the returns on which the preceding data are 

 based are 924 pounds grain and 428 pounds of roughage, showing 

 that this rule gives a somewhat liberal allowance of feed 13 (Fig. 60). 



12 Illinois Circular 88. 



13 Loc. cit. 



