FEEDING BEEF CATTLE 289 



Western Missouri, where there are permanent pastures vary- 

 ing in age from one-third to one-half of a century, and are now 

 supporting one animal to each acre from four to six months 

 each year without extra feed, and supporting two animals an 

 equal length of time when grain is fed in addition. (Fig. 91.) 



WINTER FEEDING IN DRY-LOT 



While feeding steers in the summer time on pasture may be 

 the most profitable for those cattle feeders possessing the pas- 

 ture, there are many farms, especially in the corn-belt, lacking 

 in pasture and yet possessing an abundance of grain and dry 

 forage that the farmer desires to convert into beef. On such 

 farms winter feeding in the dry-lot is the common practice. This 

 system of feeding beef cattle is not without its advantages. For 

 example, the feeding is done at a time of a year when there 

 is little other work, and if the cattle are measurably protected 

 from the wind and rain, they suffer less from the weather than 

 from the heat of summer, and especially if the flies are trouble- 

 some. When the steers are purchased in the fall and fattened 

 during the winter, the cattle feeder has his money tied up 

 a much shorter period, resulting in correspondingly quicker 

 returns. Furthermore, such a system affords a very convenient 

 method of converting the previous crop, grain and dry forage, 

 into ready cash to finance the farm the coming season, as the 

 steers are marketed and out of the way before farm work begins 

 in the spring. 



Feeding grain to cattle in the dry-lot. — The amount and kind 

 of grain that should be fed to fattening cattle in the dry-lot will 

 depend much on the age, condition, and quality of the cattle 

 as well as upon the kind of dry forage. Young stock will need 

 a heavy grain ration from start to finish if they are to be 

 made fat, whereas older cattle may be fed grain rather spar- 

 ingly at first, gradually increasing to a full grain feed sixty days 

 before marketing. With the older cattle already having their 



