UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 615 mm 



J Joint Contribution from the Office of Farm Management, A^ 

 W. J. SPILLMAN, Chief, and the Bureau of ~^&9\ 



•jrwv N-W^U Animal Industry, A. D. MELVIN, Chief. JTU* ^W«» 



Washington, D. C. V November 15, 1917 



THE ECONOMICAL WINTER FEEDING OF BEEF 

 COWS IN THE CORN BELT. 



By J. S. Cotton, Office of Farm Management, and Edmund H. Thompson, 

 Scientific Assistant, Bureau of Animal Industry. 



CONTENTS. 



The reed for more economic feeding of breed- 

 ing cows 1 



Breeding herds must get most of their living 

 from farm by-products 2 



Avoid feeding excessive rations 4 



Page. 



Avoid costly rations 6 



Use more cheap roughage 6 



Use available feeds most economically 8 



Study of rations on selected farms 11 



THE NEED FOR MORE ECONOMICAL FEEDING OF BREEDING 



COWS. 



A great many farmers in the corn-belt States keep cows of the 

 beef or the dual purpose type for the production of feeder calves. On 

 the smaller farms, having twenty cows or less, the custom is to milk 

 the cows and to sell milk products, usually cream. The calves from 

 some of these farms are sold to other farmers, who make a practice 

 of purchasing such animals and of feeding them out in carload lots. 

 Some farmers, however, make a practice of finishing their own calves 

 and enough more calves bought from their neighbors to enable them 

 to fill out a carload. On the larger farms, twenty cows or more 

 usually are kept only for the production of feeder calves, which 

 usually are fed out on the same farm as baby beef, or as two-year- 

 olds, or three-year-olds. On some of the farms of the above-described 

 types calves are produced at a substantial profit, and on others, calves 

 are produced at a heavy loss. 



Although there are a number of factors that govern the profitable- 

 ness of the calf-growing enterprise, an investigation carried on by 

 the United States Department of Agriculture in the corn-belt States 



13117°— 17 



