MEAT PRODUCTION 389 



The individual who has high class meat and of weights 

 inclining to light at such seasons may expect good values 

 for it. But to meet the conditions named requires fore- 

 thought all along the line of development, and more es- 

 pecially with reference to the duration of the finishing 

 period. 



What may be termed timeliness in marketing is of 

 much moment to the producer of live stock. Christmas 

 beef must be of high quality and ready at the proper season. 

 Milk lambs will ordinarily bring higher values in the inter- 

 val between Christmas and Easter than at an earlier or a 

 later season. When ready earlier they must be sold 

 when supplies of meat are excessive. When marketed 

 later, they must compete with early spring lambs. Heavy 

 weight animals of all kinds usually command the best 

 prices when the weather is cool or cold. While light 

 weight animals of good finish are in demand at all times, 

 they are most prized during the warm season. Swine mar- 

 keted in the spring usually sell at higher rates than those 

 sold in the fall, but they also cost more to produce them. 



Marketing when ripe. Ripeness as applied to live 

 stock is a relative term. In one sense, it may mean mar- 

 keting, when ready to meet the needs of a certain market, 

 in the absence of completed growth and even of high finish, 

 viewed from the standpoint of the amount of fat carried. 

 Winter lambs are ripe when plump and fat at weights 

 running from 35 to 45 pounds. Baby beef is ripe, when well 

 grown for the age and fat, at weights varying from 900 to 

 1 200 pounds in the yearling form. Bacon swine are ripe 

 when they attain to weights varying from 160 to 220 pounds 

 and carry but a moderate amount of fat. In another sense, 

 ripeness means that stage of development reached by ani- 

 mals that are being fattened, when they become incapable 

 of making increase proportionate to the food fed to them. 

 This latter is the sense in which the term is more commonly 

 used. 



