114 Western Live-stock Management 



to be taken from their mothers so early. Instead, the 

 mothers are turned out on good grass, which stimulates 

 the milk flow, and the calves, therefore, get an abundant 

 supply of milk for several months. They also will learn 

 to eat grass and by the time they are nine or ten months 

 old, they may be weaned without the least set-back. They 

 should, like the spring calves, be taught to eat grain be- 

 fore they are separated from their mothers, and should 

 have grain from this time on through the winter until 

 the next spring, when they will be ready to sell. The 

 advantages of fall calves are : first, they secure much more 

 milk and for a longer time and so make bigger calves at 

 less expense; second, they may be sold at about six 

 months' less age than the spring calves. Purchasers of 

 bulls to go on beef herds want to buy them in the spring 

 and they want bulls old enough to go into service. A fall 

 calf can be ready for this market at the age of eighteen 

 months, whereas the spring calf has to be kept to an age 

 of about twenty-four months. Of course the spring 

 calf at twenty-four months is a bigger, more mature bull 

 than the fall calf at eighteen, but the fall calf at eighteen 

 is big enough for service and that is all the beef-man wants 

 or is willing to pay for. The chief objection to fall calves 

 is that cows are sometimes harder to breed in the fall. 

 Some of the larger range-men prefer to buy their bulls as 

 calves just weaned and grow them out themselves. Their 

 reason for doing this is twofold : they obtain the first 

 pick of the calves in the breeder's herd, and they can grow 

 them out just the way they want them. This is, of course, 

 a very satisfactory method of doing business. The 

 smaller beef-producers, however, do not do this but put 

 off buying bulls until it is necessary to have them, which 

 means that they must purchase a bull old enough for 



