266 PRODUCTIVE FEEDING OF FARM ANIMALS 



ration will result in an improvement in the rate of gain and the 

 dressing percentage, will decrease the cost of the gain, and give 

 better finished steers. 



The value of silage for fattening steers has been demonstrated 

 by the results of experiments at a number of our stations. 15 In 

 experiments at the Indiana station four lots of steers were fed for 

 160 days on rations composed of shelled corn, cotton-seed meal, 

 and clover hay, three of the lots receiving corn silage in addition, 

 viz., on the average 16.0, 27.4, and 24.8 pounds per head daily. 

 The lot receiving shelled corn, cotton-seed meal, and silage yielded 

 an average profit of $20.96 per steer; the two lots receiving shelled 

 corn, cotton-seed meal, clover hay, and silage yielded $10.51 and 

 $13.59, and the fourth lot, receiving shelled corn, cotton-seed meal, 

 and clover hay, yielded a profit of $3.37 per head. 



If the value of the pork produced from the droppings and the 

 extra corn fed the hogs be included, the profit from the three lots 

 fed silage came as follows: $26.21, $17.09, and $19.43 per head, 

 in the order given, and that without silage, $8.24 per head. Trials 

 at other stations have shown that a ration of corn, cotton-seed meal, 

 and corn silage will give equally good results in every respect for 

 fattening steers as corn, cotton-seed meal, and clover or alfalfa 

 hay. The testimony of experiments with silage vs. roots for fatten- 

 ing steers conducted in Canada 16 and in England 17 is also decidedly 

 in favor of silage. 



Silage is especially valuable on stock farms in times of short 

 pastures. A silo for making summer silage is as good an invest- 

 ment for beef production as it is on dairy farms (p. 97). 



Concentrates. The use of concentrates in feeding fattening 

 steers will appear from the discussions of different systems of feed- 

 ing beef cattle given below. It will be noted that there are wide 

 variations in the amounts and kinds of different grain feeds fed 

 under different conditions. Beef cattle are finished for the market 

 on roughage alone (blue-grass pasture, alfalfa, or alfalfa and beet 

 pulp) in eastern and western States, respectively, and in the corn 

 belt as much -as 24 pounds of grain is often fed per day to fatten- 

 ing steers on full feed. The concentrates fed to fattening steers 



"Missouri Bulletin 112; Pennsylvania Bulletin 118; Indiana Bulletins 

 136, 163; Virginia Bulletins 157, 173; Illinois Bulletin 73; Ohio Bulletin 

 193. 



16 Ontario Agricultural College Reports, 1891, 1901, 1902. 



17 Summaries of 201 trials quoted by Henry, " Feeds and Feeding," 10th 

 ed., p. 358. 



