110 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



tent of the corn, thus enabling the animal to make 

 its growth and perform its bodily functions with- 

 out so overburdening the digestive system as to 

 impair health and vitality. 



MAINTENANCE RATIONS 



By a maintenance ration is meant a ration of 

 such quantity and composition as to simply main- 

 tain an animal in fair condition of flesh and to fur- 

 nish enough nutrition to keep up body heat and 

 vitality without decreasing or increasing the weight. 

 It is often desirable to carry breeding animals 

 through the winter on this basis, or to carry cattle 

 which it is desired to fatten upon next season's 

 grass through the winter without using a lot of 

 expensive grain feed. A ration with this object in 

 view will be narrower than that required for fat- 

 tening animals, and will not usually require such 

 judicious selection. An abundance of alfalfa or 

 clover hay alone will serve very well for such pur- 

 poses as these, because they contain a sufficient 

 amount of fat-forming materials to keep up body 

 heat and a large proportion of muscle-forming ma- 

 terial to maintain the body weight. 



At the Missouri experiment station, timothy hay 

 of average quality was found to be nutritious 

 enough to maintain the weight of yearling steers 

 throughout the winter. To do this required a little 

 more than one and one-half tons to winter each 

 steer weighing 750 pounds from November 1st to 

 April ist. Upon this basis, the steers not only 

 maintained their weight, but gained about 50 

 pounds during the winter. At the same station it was 

 found that cured corn stover handled in the ordinary 

 farm practice would not quite maintain yearling 

 steers. Each animal showed a loss of 33 pounds 



