248 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



offering them for sale without any deterioration 

 from this condition, is one of the fine points of 

 successful feeding and requires the widest experi- 

 ence and keenest discrimination. There are a large 

 number of animals, particularly cattle, which it is 

 simply a physical impossibility to feed to a finished 

 condition. Such animals as old cows and types of 

 the rough, poorly graded stock of no particular 

 breeding, will never acquire a high finish no matter 

 how long or how carefully fed. It is manifestly 

 the course of wisdom to dispose of such animals as 

 these as soon as they are in condition to be market- 

 able. 



INFLUENCE OF AGE 



Generally speaking, it is much easier to feed 

 young animals until they are finished than is the 

 case with older stock. Cattle under two years of 

 age which show a fair degree of beef type can 

 usually be finished in excellent form, and this is 

 one of the characteristics which give to baby beef 

 its peculiar value. The same is true of sheep and 

 hogs. Lambs fattened and marketed under a year 

 old can be finished in almost perfect form, and hogs 

 placed upon the market after careful feeding and 

 management at the age of from nine to ten months, 

 will invariably command a much higher price per 

 pound than older animals of greater weight. Differ- 

 ence in value comes through difference in quality. 



In considering the cattle feeding practice for the 

 different parts of the feeding period, we may state 

 that during the first several weeks the ration should 

 be largely nitrogenous in its composition. This 

 tends to develop the frame and feeding capacity of 

 the animal in considerable degree. It gets the 

 digestive and assimilative system into a condition 



