292 MANUAL OF FARM ANIMALS 



Cattle used in baby-beef production. — First of all, the cattle 

 must be young. They must be well bred and of fine quality, 

 as such cattle can be finished for the market at a much younger 

 age than the plainer kinds. The cattle to be used in the pro- 

 duction of baby-beef should not be permitted to lose their calf 

 fat. They must be kept fleshy from start to finish, for if once 

 they get run down in flesh, it is very difficult to make them 

 prime under eighteen months of age. 



Feeding for baby-beef production. — If young animals are to 

 be made fat, they must be fed liberally on fat-producing feeds, 

 particularly grain. Heavier grain feeding is required in the 

 production of baby-beef than of older beef. Calves and yearlings 

 have a tendency to grow rather than to fatten, and to overcome- 

 this they must be fed a heavy ration of grain, a fact not to 

 be lost sight of in figuring the cost. In the beginning the calf 

 should be fed considerable quantities of dry forage, such as 

 clover, alfalfa, or cowpea hay, as such foods have a tendency 

 to increase the digestive capacity of the calf, thereby enabling 

 it to handle large quantities of grain later on. If heifer calves 

 instead of steers are fed, they will finish more quickly and 

 hence should be marketed earlier. The younger the prime 

 heifers are at the time of the marketing, the less discrimination 

 in price the butcher will make between them and steers. In 

 feeding for baby-beef, the most common mistake is to market 

 the animals before they are fat enough. There is little likeli- 

 hood of getting them too fat to meet the demands of the 

 market. 



Advantages of baby-beef production. — The production of baby- 

 beef has two very distinct and outstanding advantages over that 

 of older beef. First, young animals require less food for a given 

 gain than older animals. Second, the same capital invested in 

 young animals produces more meat than in older animals. 

 During recent years these two advantages have been much 

 heralded by experimenters, and while at first sight they may 



