264 PRODUCTIVE FEEDING OF FARM ANIMALS 
1000-pound feeders in a six months’ period, use thirty to sixty days 
for getting cattle to full grain ration, allowing free access to all 
the roughage the cattle will take at the beginning, and gradually 
decreasing the amount of roughage as the grain is increased. With 
two- and three-year-old cattle that are finished on grass, 120 days 
of full feeding are usually sufficient to put such cattle in satisfactory 
marketable condition after they have been carried sixty to ninety 
days on light’ grain rations. 
“ Grade and Condition of Feeding Cattle Used.—The quality or 
breeding of the cattle has a direct bearing upon the proper length 
of the fattening period. Common cattle of the lower grades and 
plainer sorts are not susceptible to the same high finish that can be 
given well-bred cattle, hence it is useless to feed them for it. Low- 
grade feeders finish quicker than those of high grade at the same 
weights and in the same condition, because they are older (Fig. 61). 
“Age of Feeding. Cattle Used—In ordinary practice it takes 
three to four months to finish mature feeders, five to seven months 
for two-year-olds, eight to ten months for yearlings, and ten to 
eighteen months for calves.” 
Returns for Feed Eaten.—Information secured from cattle 
men in the corn belt by the Illinois station shows that the amounts 
of grain (corn or its equivalent) and hay required to produce’ 100 
pounds gain in case of steers of different ages in winter and summer 
are, on the average, as follows :'? 
Feed Required for 100 Pounds Gain with Steers of Different Ages 
Pounds | Per 100 pounds gain 
gain 
produced 
| irom ene Hay, oan 
she eed, 
corn pounds | pounds 
Calves, winter......... 8.9 378 630 
Calves, summer........ 10.0 267 577 
Yearlings, winter....... 6.5 517 857 
Yearlings, summer...... 7.6 219 734 
Two-year-olds, winter... 5.4 473 1036 
Two-year-olds, summer. . 6.8 129 818 
According to a common rule of feeders, it takes 1000 pounds 
grain and 500 pounds rough feed per 100 pounds gain in the feed 
lot; the averages of the returns on which the preceding data are 
based are 924 pounds grain and 428 pounds of roughage, showing 
that this rule gives a somewhat liberal allowance of feed ** (Fig. 60). 
22J)linois Circular 88. 38 Loc, cit, 
