Most of the cattle of the State are now owned and run in 
bunches of 300 head or less. 
The bane of the cattle business in Colorado, as else¬ 
where, is the cattle thief, or “rustler.” If it were not for the 
danger of loss from this source, the cattle could be left to 
themselves most of the time through the summer, and, by 
the use of fences around the winter range, but little time 
would necessarily be devoted to them the rest of the year. 
But the rustler is omnipresent, and if it were known that 
nobody was looking out for any given herd, it would rapidly 
disappear. This necessity for riding the range nearly all 
the year largely increases the cost of running cattle, espec¬ 
ially considering the small size of the bunches. 
All degrees of winter feeding exist. There are few 
winter ranges so good that the animals will gain in weight 
during cold weather. The first frosts come in September, 
and from then until the new grass starts the next May, 
animals on the range do well if they hold their weight. 
This leaves but five months in the year for the animal to 
grow and seven months for It to stand still or even go back¬ 
ward. 
It is evident that, if winter feed were good enough to 
keep the animal growing all the time, it would bring the 
animal to marketable size in a much shorter time. The 
present tendency of cattle raising is in this direction. A 
large number of cattle in the State are wintered on range 
feed mostly in the bottom land. A still larger number are 
fed through part of the winter on native hay cut along the 
streams. A smaller number are wintered on tame hay, 
largely timothy that has been sown for that purpose, and a 
still smaller number are brought out of the hills and parks 
to winter in the irrigated regions on alfalfa hay. The lat¬ 
ter form is, of course, the most expensive and its advant¬ 
age is merely a question of the amount of growth made as 
compared with the value of the hay eaten. But few cattle 
would be fed in the irrigated regions if alfalfa was their 
only feed. It happens, however, that, although the plow 
has destroyed the range, vet it has substituted the stubble 
fields. To utilize the stubble both of grain and of alfalfa 
and the straw of the grain, is the principal reason for winter¬ 
ing cattle in the irrigated regions. All this good feed mater¬ 
ial would otherwise be a total loss. Grain stubble and the 
straw that goes with it sells for winter feeding at from 
seventy to one hundred dollars per quarter-section. The 
cattle get considerable grain from the stubble and from the 
chaff at the straw stacks. It is not expected that cattle 
