50 Types and Market Classes of Live Stock 



are dealing with beef production and will assume the calf is from a 

 good line of beef cattle. If given plenty of feed and good care, in other 

 words every opportunity to develop quickly, the calf rapidly increases 

 in size and its flesh expands and thickens. It also lays on fat. It is 

 hard to fatten young animals because they tend to utilize their feed 

 for growth rather than fat. Growth is increase in bone and muscle. 

 However, with heavy feeding, beef cattle of the modern, blocky type, 

 become fat before reaching maturity, and may be sent to market under 

 20 months of age weighing 800 to 1,000 pounds. Such animals are 

 called "baby beeves." 



Another way to handle the calf is to turn it out to pasture and 

 perhaps help it along with a little grain if the pasture is short. In 

 this case the object is to produce growth only, and the animal may 

 then be finished as a two-year-old. Under this plan the animal should 

 be roughed through the winter with care, otherwise it will receive a 

 setback. Once the baby fleshing is lost through setbacks received 

 during development, the steer does not make as desirable a carcass as 

 he would otherwise. 



Changes in the hones. — As an animal increases in age, its bones be- 

 come hard and flinty. The bones which bear the most strain become 

 most flinty, these being the shank bones. In young cattle the tips of 

 the spinous processes of the vertebrae are soft and cartilaginous. 

 These "buttons," as they are called, are present up to the age of 18 

 months; thereafter they gradually ossify, and at about the fifth year 

 the spines are hard to the tips. Similar changes take place in the 

 cartilages on the breastbone before the third or fourth year. The 

 breastbone, backbone, ribs, and pelvis gradually harden and whiten, 

 especially after the age of 18 months. ^ When visiting a beef cooler, 

 the age of the animals from which the carcasses came may be told 

 approximately by the bones. 



Changes in the muscles. — With increase in age the muscles become 

 tougher through use. The muscles which the animal uses most and 

 which do the most work become the toughest in their make-up; these 

 are the muscles of the neck and those used in locomotion, including the 

 muscles of the thigh, shoulder, and arm. 



Storage of fat. — Wild animals store up fat in their bodies as a re- 

 serve upon which they rely in times when food is scanty. The bear, 

 for instance, stores much fat during summer and fall, which is resorbed 

 and used to support life during hibernation in winter, and he comes 

 out in the spring in very thin condition. The storing of fat is a provi- 

 sion of nature. In the domestic animals which produce meat, man has 

 encouraged this fat-storing tendency by methods of breeding and feed- 



411. Bui. 147, p. 158. 



