STEER FEEDING EXPERIMENTS 265 



Table IV gives the average daily gain per head; by two-week 

 periods. It will be noted that the gains made by all lots during the 

 first six weeks were satisfactory. Lot I made an average daily 

 gain of 2.149 pounds: Lot II, 2.136 pounds; Lot III, 2.146 pounds; 

 Lot IV, 2.017 pounds; and Lot V, 1.904 pounds. The gains made 

 during the seventh and eighth weeks were unsatisfactory and 

 greatly reduced the average for the first 56-day period. 



This factor is in keeping with results obtained at this station 

 in previous experiments, namely, that the cattle fed a large amount 

 of roughage during the early part of the feeding period seemed to 

 cease making substantial gains at the end of the sixth week. It 

 will be noted, however, that the cattle in Lot I also made very 

 poor gains during the same period, even though fed a liberal amount 

 of grain. Weather conditions or some other factor common to all 

 lots may have been the cause of this reduction in gains. As soon 

 as grain was added to the ration of the lots receiving roughage 

 only, the rate of gain increased and so continued until the period 

 from February 18 to March 4, during which time a severe snow- 

 storm made all cattle in the lots somewhat uncomfortable just prior 

 to weighing, and possibly caused the poor gains for the two-week 

 period. The average daily gains for the first and second periods 

 were more uniform in Lots I and II than in the other three lots. 

 >oth of these lots possibly received a greater amount of grain 

 rwing to the grain fed Lot I and the full feed of silage for Lot II. 



The gains for Lots III, IV and V were higher during the 

 second period than during the first period. The average for the 

 entire period was lowest in Lots I and III, while Lots II, IV and 

 V were quite uniform. The smaller gains made in Lot I were no 

 doubt due to the absence of silage in the ration, while that of Lot 

 [II is due to the small amount of grain or concentrated feed con- 

 sumed because of the absence of the cottonseed meal. The aver- 

 age daily gains made by all lots except Lot I were all that could be 

 expected from the character of the rations fed. The sudden falling 

 off in gains at the end of the sixth week would seem to indicate that 

 a two-month roughage feeding period is too long. 



