30 Western Live-stock Management 



live-stock, while nutrition is concerned with growth and 

 development of the individual. It is too large a subject 

 to be handled in the space now available but is none the 

 less worthy of careful consideration on the part of the 

 stockman. The cattle- or sheep-man running stock on 

 the range does not have so great a need for a scientific 

 knowledge of feeding, but everyone running stock on the 

 farm where much hay, grain, or silage is used will find 

 it much to his advantage to have a fair knowledge of sci- 

 entific feeding and especially of nutritive ratios, feeding 

 standards, and the compounding of rations. A list of 

 suitable bulletins and books along this line may be ob- 

 tained by writing to any agricultural college. 



DIPFEEENT STOCK COMPARED 



The different kinds of live-stock vary greatly in the 

 returns which they give for every hundred pounds of di- 

 gestible matter which they consume in their feed. For 

 example, a hundred pounds of digestible matter fed to a 

 good dairy cow will give a product of at least twice the 

 money value that would be obtained from the same amount 

 of feed fed to a fattening steer. Likewise the amount of 

 edible solids suitable for human consumption produced 

 by the dairy cow will be very much higher than that pro- 

 duced by the steer. The pig also produces a very high 

 return both in human food and the money value of the 

 product; every hundred pounds of digestible nutrients 

 compares in this way very favorably with the dairy cow. 

 The sheep, on the other hand, gives a relatively low re- 

 turn for each hundred pounds of digestible matter con- 

 sumed, although he, as a rule, brings slightly higher re- 

 turns than does the steer. The horse is of course not a 



