82 Western Live-stock Management 



on hay by filling up the racks in the morning and then not 

 going near them until the next day. Even feeding twice 

 a day will not give satisfactory results as compared with 

 feeding three or four times. When large numbers of 

 cattle are fed, the feed is hauled continually throughout 

 the day and the cattle are generally fed four to five or six 

 times during the day. One man and a team can feed in 

 this way from 80 to 100 cattle. The tops and bottoms of 

 the stacks, if at all bad, should never be put into the racks, 

 but rather scattered on the ground or fed to stock animals. 

 If scattered out on the ground for the steers, they will 

 waste all the bad parts of the hay ; but it is much more 

 economical to let fattening steers waste bad hay than to 

 allow them to become hungry enough to eat it. Whenever 

 the ground is dry or frozen and there is plenty of room, it 

 is a very good practice to feed about one load a day on 

 the ground the first thing in the morning. Cattle would 

 rather eat hay off the ground than from the racks, and 

 if fed one load in this way they will clean it up with very 

 little waste. Experiments have shown that a lot of a 

 hundred steers will eat about as much out of the racks 

 during the day with this extra load on the ground as they 

 will without it. When the cattle are allowed to run in a 

 field of a considerable size, it is possible to scatter the 

 manure over the field in this manner, but of course when 

 the ground is muddy all the hay must be fed in racks. 

 Chopped hay or alfalfa meal must be fed several times a 

 day, just as the long hay, . but ordinarily the cattle will 

 clean it up well and there will be very little waste. 



LENGTH OF FEEDING PERIOD 



The length of the feeding period will not be as great 

 as in the East where, as we have noted, it is usually about 



