80 Western Live-stock Management 
out of the grain, and this brings the cost up to such a point 
as to be prohibitive. When hay is poor, no attempt 
should be made toward fattening steers, but such hay 
should be used for stock cattle. The Eastern Oregon 
Experiment Station has conducted three experiments in 
which one lot was fed straight alfalfa, one alfalfa and five 
pounds of barley a day, and one alfalfa alone for sixty 
days and alfalfa and ten pounds of barley for another sixty 
days. There were acarload of steers in eachlot. Averag- 
ing the three tests, it was found that those on alfalfa alone 
in 120 days gained 112 poundsata cost of $11.36 a hundred 
pounds; those on five pounds of barley gained 150 pounds 
at a cost of $12.10 a hundred pounds, while those getting 
ten pounds of barley during the last sixty days gained 141 
pounds at a cost of $12.90 a hundred pounds. A some- 
what similar test was conducted at the Colorado station 
as reported in Bulletin 102, where a lot of steers on alfalfa 
alone gained 1.5 pounds a day at a cost of $8.48 a hundred 
pounds while another lot getting an average of 6.6 pounds 
of corn a day in addition to the alfalfa gained 1.8 pounds 
a day at a cost of $10.03 a hundred pounds. In figuring 
the costs of gains in both Oregon and Colorado tests, the 
alfalfa has been figured at $6.00 a ton and grain at $25.00 
aton.. These tests do not indicate any marked advantage 
for the grain. The hay alone in each case produced the 
cheaper gains, but the addition of the grain to the hay 
ration gave a larger gain and consequently about enough 
better finish to offset the added cost. In view of the fact 
that in many of the cattle-feeding districts grain is very 
expensive and hard to procure, its use would hardly seem 
advisable. The feeders themselves apparently take this 
view of the matter and very few cattle-feeders in the West 
use any grain. 
