80 Western Live-stock Management 



out of the grain, and this brings the cost up to such a point 

 as to be prohibitive. When hay is poor, no attempt 

 should be made toward fattening steers, but such hay- 

 should be used for stock cattle. The Eastern Oregon 

 Experiment Station has conducted three experiments in 

 which one lot was fed straight alfalfa, one alfalfa and five 

 pounds of barley a day, and one alfalfa alone for sixty 

 days and alfalfa and ten pounds of barley for another sixty 

 days. There were a carload of steers in each lot. Averag- 

 ing the three tests, it was found that those on alfalfa alone 

 in 120 days gained 112 pounds at a cost of $11.36 a hundred 

 pounds ; those on five pounds of barley gained 150 pounds 

 at a cost of $12.10 a hundred pounds, while those getting 

 ten pounds of barley during the last sixty days gained 141 

 pounds at a cost of $12.90 a hundred pounds. A some- 

 what similar test was conducted at the Colorado station 

 as reported in Bulletin 102, where a lot of steers on alfalfa 

 alone gained 1.5 pounds a day at a cost of $8.48 a hundred 

 pounds while another lot getting an average of 6.6 pounds 

 of corn a day in addition to the alfalfa gained 1.8 pounds 

 a day at a cost of $10.03 a hundred pounds. In figuring 

 the costs of gains in both Oregon and Colorado tests, the 

 alfalfa has been figured at $6.00 a ton and grain at $25.00 

 a ton. These tests do not indicate any marked advantage 

 for the grain. The hay alone in each case produced the 

 cheaper gains, but the addition of the grain to the hay 

 ration gave a larger gain and consequently about enough 

 better finish to offset the added cost. In view of the fact 

 that in many of the cattle-feeding districts grain is very 

 expensive and hard to procure, its use would hardly seem 

 advisable. The feeders themselves apparently take this 

 view of the matter and very few cattle-feeders in the West 

 use any grain. 



