76 
BULLETIN 25, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
miles or 60 hours; St. Louis. 825 miles or 70 hours: and Chicago, 
1.000 miles or 119 hours. The average shrinkage of all cattle to St. 
Joseph was 37 pounds; to Kansas City, 55J pounds; to St. Louis, 
68 pounds; and to Chicago, 88J pounds. 
The silage-fed cattle were usually put on dry feed the day before 
shipping, and no doubt there was considerable shrinkage on these 
cattle during this time, although there are no data to confirm this. 
This would be especially noticeable where the Avater was cut off from 
them for 12 hours before shipping, as was sometimes done. All of 
the silage-fed cattle shrank heavily in transit, but in every case took 
a large fill at market. The fills taken were so large that the net 
shrinkage on silage-fed cattle averaged smaller than for any other 
class of fed cattle. 
There was one shipment of 107 head of silage-fed cattle which 
were held off water but given dry feeds for over 15 hours before 
shipping, and consequently shrank so little in transit that the fill 
taken at market overcame the shrinkage and they showed a gain of 
7 pounds each. This lowered the shrinkage on the whole class sev- 
eral pounds. The shrinkage on the silage-fed cattle was 29 pounds 
for those in transit less than 21 hours and 13 pounds for those in 
transit from 24 to 36 hours. This was equivalent to 2.05 per cent of 
the live weight in one case and 3.57 per cent in the other. 
A glance at Table 29, presenting the general summary of the work, 
brings out the fact that the weights of about 2,500 head of corn-fed 
cattle were used in determining the shrinkage on this class. The 
gross shrinkage is seen to vary widely, ranging from 47 to 128 
pounds per head. The fill taken at market varied from 4 to 52 
pounds per head. The average fill at market was smaller than for 
any other class of grown cattle except those fed on cottonseed meal 
and hulls. The net shrinkage of these cattle was 51 pounds for the 
steers which were in transit less than 24 hours, and 48 pounds for 
lighter steers which were in transit from 24 to 36 hours. This was 
a heavier shrinkage than that of the range cattle for the same 
length of time, but when the weight of the animals is considered 
the percentage of shrinkage is seen to be about the same, the corn- 
fed steers in transit less than 24 hours shrinking 3.91 per cent as 
compared with 4.11 per cent for the steers in transit from 24 to 36 
hours. This shrinkage was greater than that of the silage-fed 
steers, but much smaller than for the pulp-fed cattle. 
The cattle fed on cottonseed hulls and meal shrank very uniformly, 
and the gross shrinkage was not large: it was. in fact, not as large as 
that of either pulp or silage fed cattle. However, all of these cattle 
arrived at market when snow and ice were everywhere in evidence, 
and the fill taken in every case was small, so that the net shrinkage 
was comparatively high. 
