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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
- Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Cooperating 
DEPARTMENT BULLETIN No. 1454 
Washington, D. C. 
November, 1926 
FACTORS IN THE COST OF PRODUCING BEEF IN THE FLINT HILLS SECTION 
OF KANSAS 
By R. H. Wilcox, Agricultural Economist, Division of Farm Management and 
Costs, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and W. E. Grimes, Morris Evans, 
and H. J. Henney, Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station 
CONTENTS 
Page 
The grass-cattle industry in Kansas 1 
Characteristics of the Flint Hills section 2 
Origin and destination of cattle 3 
Location and methodofstudy 3 
Economic conditions during period of study, 3 
Influence of movement of cattle on the market. 5 
Gains and pasture and labor requirements... 9 
Cost of carrying steers on grass 1 12 
Page 
Factors influencing profit or loss in grazing 
cattle 14 
Carrying capacity, steer investment, and 
carrying costs per 100 acres of grass 17 
Feeding steers on grass , 19 
Use of cost data in estimating operations 21 
Wintering steers in Chase County 23 
Cow herds in Chase County 25 
THE GRASS-CATTLE INDUSTRY IN KANSAS 
In the central and southern portion of the eastern half of Kansas 
is a section of rough topography, commonly called the Flint Hills. 
(Fig. 1.) Within this section are more than 3,000,000 acres of land in 
the native prairie grasses used for the grazing of cattle. Much of this 
land is too rough for cultivation and is in permanent pasture. On these 
pastures approximately 500,000 head of cattle are grazed each year. 
The size of the section and its importance in the agriculture of 
Kansas and in the beef industry make problems in the production of 
beef here of interest to a territory far wider than the 15 or 20 counties 
included within the section. 
It was with a view to learning the number of acres of grass 
required to put the normal gains on steers that graze in this territory, 
the methods used in handling steers and the factors which constitute 
the costs attached to these cattle while they were in the Flint Hills 
section, together with a determination of the economic position of 
summer grazing of cattle in Kansas in its relation to the beef-cattle 
industry and to the markets for livestock, that a study was begun 
in 1921 by the United States Department of Agriculture in cooper- 
ation with the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station. 
It is believed that information gained in this study will be of value 
to cattlemen of the territory when making their plans for the quanti- 
ties of the various feeds necessary for the production of beef, when 
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