﻿42 BULLETIN 25, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 



SILAGE-FED CATTLE IN TRANSIT LESS THAN 20 HOURS. 



The shipments shown in Table 16 were made under normal 

 conditions with one exception. This was the shipment of 21 head 

 from Whitehall. 111., which arrived at East St. Louis late in 

 the afternoon. During the night a heavy rainstorm set in, and as 

 the cattle were confined in open pens the}^ were thoroughly drenched. 

 The following morning the weather turned quite cool and the animals 

 refused to drink. This resulted in the extremely small fill of 6 

 pounds per head and caused the net shrinkage to be considerably 

 more than that of any other shipment recorded in the table. There 

 were seven shipments in all, totaling 397 head. 



'Xhe shipment of 107 head from Marshalltown, Iowa, shows a re- 

 sult which is out of the ordinary, as the final weights of the cattle 

 were heavier than when they were placed on the cars. As shown in 

 the table, the fill at market replaced the shrinkage in transit and 7 

 pounds more. All of the animals were 2-year-old western steers that 

 had been fed ground oats the night previous to shipment, but were 

 given no water. The following morning they were brought to the 

 station in two lots, one lot being trailed 2 miles and the other 4 miles. 

 These cattle had been fed 75 days on canning-factory silage, corn, 

 hay, and cottonseed meal. Hav was out in the car racks before load- 

 ing. 



j Particular attention is called to the grand average net shrinkage 

 as shown in this table, since it is considerably smaller than the aver- 

 age in the other tables. In fact the difference is so marked that some 

 explanation should be given. The very low average is due to the 

 previously mentioned shipment of 107 head which gained 7 pounds 

 at market. With this shipment excluded the average would be raised 

 to 35 pounds. 



In this connection it may be stated that four other shipments made 

 under similar environment and covering an average length of 151 

 hours in transit show a grand average net shrinkage of 49 pounds. 

 These four shipments are not included in the table because the fill at 

 market was not ascertained. There were 155 animals in the ship- 

 ments, and while the net shrinkage averages considerably higher than 

 that of the 397 cattle in the table, we are unable to advance am^ 

 reasons for the increased shrinkage, owing to the incompleteness of 

 the returns. However, if we combine the two averages we get a net 

 shrinkage of 30 pounds for the entire 552 animals, and this would 

 seem to be a fair average for silage-fed cattle in transit 16 hours. 



