CHAPTER XXIV 



FEEDS FOR BEEF CATTLE 



I. Carbonaceous Concentrates 



Indian corn. — Of all the concentrates, Indian corn is and will 

 continue to be the great fattening feed for cattle in the United States. 

 It excels not only because of its richness in starch and oil, but also 

 because no other concentrate is so palatable to cattle. Numerous 

 trials have clearly shown, however, that corn is too low in protein, 

 even for fattening animals, and should therefore be fed with legume 

 hay or else with some protein-rich concentrate, such as linseed or 

 cottonseed meal, when only carbonaceous roughages are used. The 

 value of legume hay for supplementing corn is shown in the follow- 

 ing table, which summarizes the results of 8 trials, averaging 144 

 days in length, where corn was fed with carbonaceous roughage, 

 such as timothy hay, prairie hay, corn stover or kafir stover, to one 

 lot of 2- or 3-year-old steers, while corn and clover or alfalfa hay 

 were fed to a second lot. 



Legume hay as a supplement to corn 



While the steers in Lot II, fed corn and legume haj^ gained 2.3 

 lbs. per head daily, those in Lot I, getting the unbalanced ration of 

 corn and carbonaceous roughage, gained only 1.7 lbs., and re(|uired 

 35 per ct. more corn and 44 per ct. more roughage for 100 lbs. gain 

 than the others. 



The following table shows clearly the importance of adding some 

 protein-rich concentrate to balance the ration when corn is fed with 

 carbonaceous roughage. This summarizes the results of 4 trials, aver- 



308 



