PROSO IS GOOD FEED 
Farmers Say 
For Cattle, Lambs, Poultry 
By William H. Kircher 
Field Editor of The Farmer 
An Act 
in the lot, 
“We have a lot of Proso in the bin at home. Would 
that be a good feed for a steer?” 
This question came from a boy at a 4-H Club meeting 
in western Lake County, S. D., not long ago. It is a 
question which editors of The Farmer and which 
animal husbandmen at Northwestern colleges* of agri¬ 
culture have been receiving frequently of late. 
Not only do folks ask about Proso’s feeding value for 
steers, but they also want to know about feeding it to 
chickens and to lambs. It was because of these ques¬ 
tions that we set out to find some farmers who have had 
experience w r ith Proso feeding to chickens, lambs and 
steers, so that we could pass the results of their ex¬ 
perience on to you. 
W. H. Boyd, an Angus breeder of Lake County, S. D., 
was the first man with whom we talked. Mr. Boyd, like 
all the men with whom we talked later, had found that 
steers do well on Proso. 
“Last year,” Mr. Boyd said, “we had 400 bushels of 
Proso which we fed with barley to our steers and they 
came along just as fast as they do on corn. The barley 
and Proso were mixed in 50-50 proportions and ground 
fine in a hammer mill. We soon found after we started 
feeding whole Proso, that we w r ere losing a lot of it 
through our cattle. The trouble was all over just as 
soon as we ground it." 
Another man who has had considerable experience 
with Proso feeding to steers is F. G. Norgren, who lives 
near Mr. Boyd. Mr. Norgren had 18 head of grade 
Hereford calves which he put on feed in December of 
1935 when they weighed an average of 325 pounds. The 
first three weeks nearly all their grain was oats, and 
then a shift was made to Proso with Proso hay and 
pigeon grass as roughage. Pigeon grass being of the 
same family as Proso, this was about as near a straight 
Proso diet as could be devised. When on full feed the 
18 head were taking a little more than eight bushels of 
finely ground Proso a day, which is about the same as 
the amount of corn they would consume. “They did 
just as well as they would have done on corn," Mr. 
Norgren declared. “When I sold them they averaged 
90 pounds. It was raining most of the night we hauled 
them to the yards at Sioux Falls, so they looked pretty 
bad when we got there, and they wouldn’t take any 
water or any feed. In spite of that though they brought 
18.75 a hundred, while the top of the market that day 
was $9.15.” 
Both Mr. Boyd and Mr. Norgren say that they had 
no trouble with their cattle scouring as a result of the 
Proso feeding, and the two lamb feeders who had fed 
Proso said that it hadn’t caused lambs to scour either. 
PI _One of these lamb feeders was Warner Boyd, a son of 
Photograph ot a Bundle ot Proso w. H. Boyd. There were 70 head of native June lambs 
were finished entirely on Proso and weighed an average of 90 pounds when they were marketed in December. 
Lambs Do Well 
W. J. Schoenfield is another lamb feeder who has found that lambs do well on Proso. On September 13,1935, he received a shipment 
of 600 western lambs, which weighed an average of 62-1/2 pounds each when they were loaded in Montana. During the first two weeks 
after the lambs were received they were pastured on stubble and given a little oats. Then during the following two months they were 
fed one feeding of flax screenings and two feedings of finely ground Proso a day. They got alfalfa hay as roughage, and when the first 
bunch was sold on December 11, they were sold near the top of the market. 
F. B. Morrison, whose book, “Feeds and Feeding,” is considered a highly authoritative guide by nearly all the animal nutrition 
specialists of the country, puts Proso’s feeding value as compared to corn even higher than does Mr. Schoenfield. In the latest edition 
of “Feeds and Feeding,” Prof. Morrison writes that Proso has from 75% to 90% the value of corn. 
Mr. Schoenfield, who fed Proso to lambs, has had about the same success feeding it to chickens as the college has had. Mr. Schoen¬ 
field fed Proso to their flock of 100 two and three-year-old hens, and when we visited him late in September the 100 birds were laying 
35 to 40 eggs per day despite their age. C. A. Hicks, county agent of Lake County, S. D., fed Proso to his chicks last spring, and he 
also had good results. When his chicks were six weeks old, he fed them starter mash in open feeders and fed Proso as scratch grain. 
They went for the Proso with the same relish as they would go for corn, and seemed to do as well on it. 
Good Emergency Crop 
All these men hail Proso as a salvation crop when others fail during the first weeks of summer. Proso on some farms is seeded in late 
June when it appears that corn will not make a crop, or about July 1 when alfalfa shows the effects of winter killing or drought. It was 
on alfalfa land that Mr. Schoenfield seeded Proso last summer. There were 30 acres seeded about July 1,'and the average yield was 
35 bushels per acre. Mr. Schoenfield has had yields as high as 40 bushels per acre. Mr. Norgren seeded Proso on July 1 a year ago, 
and got a 40 bushel per acre yield. 
—The above article was reprinted from the January 2, 1937, issue of THE FARMER. The illustrations were not in the original 
article. 
Refer to page 2 for prices of Proso, and read on page 4 what customers say about Proso. Be sure to give it a trial this year. It will 
no doubt pay to do so. 
