Feeding Beef Cattle 177 
means delicacy or lack of thrift, and no animal lacking in thrift 
should find its way into the feed lot. 
To make rapid and economic feeders the cattle should not 
possess much flesh at the beginning of the feeding period. The 
thinner the steer at the beginning of the feeding process, the more 
rapid and economical gains it will make, provided there is no 
lack of thrift. If we examine the bodies of the thin and fat steer, 
it may give us an insight as to why the animal gains in flesh more 
rapidly and on less feed when in a thin condition: — 
WatER ASH PrRotTEIN Fat 
Per Cent | Per Cent | Per Cent | Per Cent 
Thin steer . 66.2 5.9 19.2 8.7 
Fat steer 49.5 4.4 15.6 30.5 
The body of the thin steer contains a relatively high amount of 
water and low fat, whereas the fat steer’s body contains a relatively 
small amount of water and high fat content. This may have a 
bearing on the fact that a thin steer gains more rapidly and on 
less feed than a fat one, and also on the fact that as the full feed- 
ing proceeds the gains are made less rapidly and require more feed. 
291. Quality of feeding cattle. — Quality should be considered 
from two points of view: general quality, and handling quality. 
By general quality is meant that general refinement of external 
form found in the neat head, fine horn, dense bone, smooth out- 
line, and compact body. This quality is affected by nothing so 
much as breeding. General quality and good breeding are closely 
associated, well-bred animals being likely to possess quality, 
whereas it is often wanting in the common-bred steers. The im- 
portance of general quality in feeding cattle cannot be over es- 
timated, as steers possessing it will give higher profit to both 
the cattle feeder and the butcher, not because such animals will 
necessarily make more meat from a given amount of food, but 
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