THE BEEF CATTLE INDUSTRY 



405 



it should be. Eoots may be fed in ra- 

 tions of from 50 to 60 pounds a day to 

 each steer. 



In England, it has been found that a 

 daily ration of 56 pounds of rutabagas 

 is equally good and cheaper than when 

 half of the root ration is replaced by 

 2% pounds clover hay, x /z pound mo- 

 lasses and V2 pound corn meal. The 

 English feeders commonly believe that all 

 steers in process of fattening should re- 

 ceive roots at least to the extent of 28 

 pounds a day, and that a ration of 56 

 pounds is profitable. The daily gain of 

 steers on turnips, mangels and silage in 

 a number of English experiments was 

 found to be about the same. 



Some of the roots which have been 

 most extensively fed to steers may be 

 briefly discussed in the following para- 

 graphs. 



Carrots — Nearly all farmers believe 

 in the nutritive and medicinal value oi 

 carrots for farm animals. They are fed 

 less extensively to steers, however, than 

 to dairy cows or sheep. 



Cassava — This root has been fed to 

 steers at the Florida experiment station, 

 where it is claimed that beef was pro- 

 duced on it at a cost of 1 cent a pound. 

 Cassava appeared to give greater gains 

 and a larger percentage of dressed weight 

 than cottonseed meal or corn meal, and 

 the profit from feeding cassava was 

 greater than from corn, but less than 

 from cottonseed meal. These results, 

 however, require substantiation, since 

 they seem to indicate too high a feed- 

 ing value for cassava as judged by its 

 chemical analysis. In Florida, cassava 

 has been fed in rations of 30 pounds a 

 day, or in the form of cassava pulp in 

 rations of 18 pounds a day. The steers 

 fed on cassava or cassava pulp dressed 

 51 per cent. It appeared from the 

 Florida experiments that velvet beans 

 alone with the roughage are inferior to 

 a ration containing full feeds of cassava. 

 The cassava pulp from starch factories 

 is a valuable feeding stuff, but at the 

 usual price of $6 a ton is less econom- 

 ical than the whole cassava root. 



Potatoes — In recent years the price 

 of potatoes has been too high to allow 

 of their being fed extensively to steers. 

 Whenever potatoes are low, however, 

 they are used as one of the important 

 elements in steer rations in ordinary 

 farm practice, but very few experiments 

 have been made to test their exact value 

 for this purpose. It has been found in 



Germany that potatoes may be safely 

 and profitably fed to steers in rations 

 of 60 pounds a day in combination with 

 clover hay and linseed meal. 



Sugar beets — Recently the use of 

 sugar beets and particularly sugar beet 

 pulp has become a general practice 

 among beef raisers. It is most profit- 

 able to sell the sugar beets to the fac- 

 tory and buy pulp for feeding. For 

 this reason, pulp is fed far more ex- 

 tensively than sugar beets. Some of the 

 large cattle feeding companies use it on 

 an extensive scale, after having found 

 that its feeding value and medicinal 

 properties are more important and 

 more effective in steer fattening than 

 would appear from an analysis of the 

 material. In early experiments in Colo- 

 rado, sugar beets were found to have a 

 feeding value of $3 a ton. In Wyoming, 

 when used in rations of 14 pounds a 

 day with alfalfa hay, sugar beets made 

 profitable gains. Beet leaf silage has 

 also been used to a considerable extent, 

 but according to German experiments it 

 does not possess much feeding value. 



At the Colorado experiment station, 

 Carlyle and others made a number of 

 tests to determine the conditions under 

 which sugar beet pulp could be most 

 profitably fed to steers, in connection 

 with the use of alfalfa and home-grown 

 grains. In one set of experiments, all 

 the steers were given alfalfa hay and 

 sugar beet pulp ad libitum, while some 

 of the steers received corn and others 

 barley and oats. It appeared from these 

 experiments that where an abundance of 

 beet pulp and alfalfa hay were fed, a 

 grain ration of 5 pounds a day produced 

 a rapid and satisfactory gain. The steers 

 which received grain ate 98 pounds 

 of pulp and 11 pounds of hay daily, 

 while those that had no grain consumed 

 123 pounds of pulp and 12.5 pounds of 

 hay daily. Carlyle recommends that in 

 feeding pulp, great cleanliness should 

 be observed and the troughs should be 

 thoroughly cleaned daily after feeding. 

 In the coldest weather of winter it is 

 recommended that beet pulp should 

 never be fed in the afternoon or even- 

 ing. It must be remembered that sugar 

 beet pulp has a laxative effect. Cattle 

 appear to be particularly fond of pulp 

 from the silo, preferring this to fresh 

 pulp. In order to ensile pulp, it should 

 be placed in the silo direct from the 

 sugar factory, in a perfectly fresh state. 



