6 
bulletin 97. 
until purchased. The price paid was $2.85 per hundred weight, 
which was low, as the cattle were a fair average lot of feeders. 
The entire lot of cattle were fed together on pulp and hay for several 
weeks prior to the beginning of the experiment for the purpose of 
getting them accustomed to the feed. No shelter of any kind 
was provided for the cattle during the entire feeding period. The 
hay was fed from the ground, the animals securing it by passing 
their heads through a rack made of poles, which prevented waste 
from trampling. The pulp and grain were fed from long flat boxes or 
“bunks” set up from the ground on legs. The enclosing and 
division fences were constructed of posts and barbed wire. 
On December 19, the 150 head of cattle were divided as equally 
as possible into three groups of 50 each. General conformation, 
breed characteristics, as well as size and weight were made the 
basis for this division. 
In table 1 is given the weights of the steers in each lot when 
the experiment was started, from which it may be seen that the 
steers were not better than a good average bunch of feeders. 
TABLE I. GIVING INITIAL WEIGHT OF STEERS. 
LOT I. LOT II. LOT III. 
Total_ 45,880 44,960 45,278 
Average_ 917,6 899.2 905.6 
Feeds and Feeding .—The steers in each lot were given all 
the alfalfa hay and beet pulp they would consume without ex¬ 
cessive waste. In addition, Lot 1 was fed a light ration of ground 
barley and ground oats, two parts by weight of barley to one of 
oats. Lot II was fed the same amount of ground corn as Lot I 
received of barley and oats. No grain of any kind was fed to the 
steers in Lot III during the experiment. A large wagon scale 
was provided for weighing the steers each week and also for 
weighing the hay and beet pulp to each lot. The grain was 
weighed out each day, as fed, from a small platform scale. 
The grain supplied was much below the average as it was 
purchased from time to time from the local mills and varied 
greatly in quality. The barley and oats were particularly note¬ 
worthy in this respect as they frequently contained a large per¬ 
centage of wild oats. This was unavoidable, as we could not con¬ 
trol the purchase of the grain. At different times as the experi¬ 
ment progressed, new lots of hay were purchased for each lot of 
cattle, so that no attempt was made at such times to keep a record 
of the daily consumption of hay by each lot, the total 
weight being charged to each lot and the average amount eaten 
daily and weekly calculated therefrom. 
