MEAT PRODUCTION 403 



commonly in the one-year form, and between the ages of 

 15 and 21 months. The term has also been applied to 

 animals marketed when a little beyond the age of two 

 years, but clearly it should not be so applied, as animals 

 beyond that age may be made to produce carcasses, approx- 

 imating average carcass weights. 



The following are chief among the objects sought 

 from growing baby beef: (i)To meet the demand for 

 well finished carcasses of light weight and possessed of 

 quality that commands ready sale. Such meat is juicy and 

 tender; (2) to prevent the over-stocking which may result 

 from maintaining meat making animals of a more mature 

 age. Such overstocking may easily occur both on the range 

 and on the arable farm; (3) to secure increase from a 

 minimum expenditure of food, on the principle that in- 

 crease calls for more food to make it as the birth period 

 is receded from. 



Baby beef can only be finished on the arable farm 

 or under arable farm conditions, although its growth 

 may be commenced and maintained on the range up to the 

 weaning period. Dropped in the spring, the calves are pur- 

 chased when weaned, pushed rapidly onward and disposed 

 of during the following summer. Localities in which corn 

 and alfalfa or corn and clover grow abundantly, have high- 

 est adaptation for such feeding, since they furnish grow- 

 ing and fattening foods in balance and cheaply, but in all 

 localities where growth is abundant, baby beef may be 

 grown from start to finish. 



On the arable farm two methods of growing baby 

 beef have been followed. By the first, the calves are 

 dropped, preferably in the autumn or early winter, reared 

 upon their dams, pushed rapidly forward by generous grain 

 feeding, subsequently to weaning, and marketed the second 

 spring from the stall or what may usually be. preferable, 

 from the pastures of early summer, a season when such 

 meat is much in demand. Animals reared thus will prob- 

 ably bring more profit usually in the two-year form, since 



