CHAPTER VII 

 SELECTION OF FEEDER STEERS 



Beef producers may be divided into two groups — (1) men who 

 grow beef, and (2) cattle feeders. In the first group are those who 

 maintain breeding herds for the production of steers for the market. 

 This group includes the western cattle man on the range and also the 

 farmer who keeps a small herd of beef cows. The beef grower has a 

 year-round job. Furthermore, he usually follows the business steadily 

 for a period of years. The very nature of the business demands that 

 it be established on a permanent basis. It cannot be followed one 

 year, given up the next year, and begun again the next, with any fair 

 expectation of profits. The second group includes those who follow 

 the practice of buying thin cattle to be fattened. This is simply a 

 finishing process, and is more speculative in character than that of 

 growing beef. It may be followed intermittently, although most suc- 

 cessful feeders are in the business regularly each year. Furthermore, 

 in the corn-belt states, where grain feeding is practiced, it is usually 

 limited to a few months of the year and usually to those months when 

 other farm work is slack. 



When and where feeders are bought.^^In an investigation of 

 methods of marketing live stock and meats, made by the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture ^ in 1915, reports were received from 2,072 special 

 live-stock and price reporters of the Bureau of Crop Estimates which 

 indicated that 74 per cent of stockers and feeders are bought in the 

 fall, 19 per cent in the spring, 3 per cent in the summer, and 4 per cent 

 in the winter. It was also indicated that 55 per cent of stocker and 

 feeder cattle purchased are bought in the district In which they are fed 

 or grazed, 27 per cent at the centralized markets, and 18 per cent in 

 the country, other than locally. 



Western range chief source of supply.— As shown in the preceding 

 chapter, the corn-belt beef-grower finds baby-beef production profit- 

 able. On his high-priced land he cannot afford to raise steers to two 

 years old or older and then fatten them. The corn-belt cattle feeder, 

 however, is not bound by the same rules. He usually buys western 

 steers raised on cheaper lands, and as long as thin two- and three-year- 

 old steers may be bought at prices low enough to make them profitable, 

 the feeder will continue to make use of them as well as of calves and 

 yearlings. 



lU. S. Dept. Agr. Rpt. 113, p. 17. 



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