408 



FARMER'S CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK 



5 pounds linseed meal. With two-year- 

 olds in winter, some feeders give all the 

 corn they will eat, while the majority 

 feed about ^2 bushel. If mixed grain 

 rations are fed, the following will be 

 found satisfactory: One peck of corn, 



6 pounds oats or bran and 6 pounds cot- 

 tonseed meal ; all the corn that the steers 

 will eat, 5 pounds of bran and 5 pounds 

 of linseed meal; 1-3 bushel of corn and 

 5 pounds cottonseed meal. Two-year- 

 olds in summer, on grass, will eat from 

 1 peck to 1-3 bushel of corn. Many 

 feeders, however, find it quite satisfac- 

 tory to give all the corn the steers will 

 eat, without measuring it accurately. 



Daily gain — The average daily gain 

 for steers cannot be stated without qual- 



Illinois, different men estimate that 

 from 4 to 20 bushels of corn are nec- 

 essary for the production of 100 pounds 

 of meat on calves in winter; from 5 

 to 30 bushels on yearlings in winter 

 and from 5 to 25 bushels in summer; 

 from 5 to 40 bushels on two-year-olds 

 in winter and from 6 to 37 bushels in 

 summer. It is obvious from these es- 

 timates of farmers that too little at 

 tention is given to the matter, since it 

 is quite impossible that the effectiveness 

 of corn and other grain feeds should 

 vary so enormously as indicated by these 

 figures. On a basis of more than 100 

 feeding experiments involving over 750 

 steers, it has been found that the follow- 

 ing amounts of different grains are re- 



Fig. 270 TRACK AND CAR FOR CARRYING FEED TO THE FEED RACKS 



ification, since the gain, as will presently 

 be explained, depends on a number of 

 factors, particularly age, and the length 

 of the feeding period. The daily gain, 

 as shown by statistics based on more 

 than 50,000 steers, ranges from 1.2 to 

 2.3 pounds a day. In many instances, 

 however, a considerable higher gain is 

 obtained. According to the reports of 

 Illinois feeders, the average gain for 

 cattle in the summer on grass is 2 

 pounds and in winter 2.2 pounds a day. 

 Feed required for 100 pounds gain — 

 Throughout the discussion of individ- 

 ual feeds used in fattening steers, men- 

 tion has been made, in most instances, 

 of the amount of these feeds required 

 for a pound of gain. A common say- 

 ing among farmers is, that "a bushel of 

 corn will make 5 pounds of beef." In 



quired for the production of 100 pounds 

 of beef: 817 pounds mixed grain, 911 

 pounds peas, 914 pounds barley, 1,028 

 pounds corn, 1,032 pounds oats, 1,058 

 pounds kafir corn, or 1,090 pounds 

 wheat. Steers should gain about 2 

 pounds a day on a ration of 30 to 50 

 pounds of silage or roots, 8 to 12 pounds 

 of grain and hay or straw ad libitum. 



Amount of roughage — This is a diffi- 

 cult point on which to make a specific 

 recommendation, since the majority of 

 beef raisers, perhaps 95 per cent, allow 

 steers all the roughage they will eat 

 during the whole fattening period. Per- 

 haps one-half of the beef feeders follow 

 the practice of changing the roughage 

 in the ration from time to time, in 

 order to induce the steers to eat as 

 much as possible. The more roughage 



