Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 223]

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215 purchased, exact statements cannot be made as to ages or breeding. They had been cheaply wintered ; were in good health, but in thin flesh, when turned on grass April 27. A little grain was given them for a few days. Then they had only grass until August £0, when feeding with new-crop corn was begun. At first stalks were fed ; then the unhusked ears. Then husked ears. They were kept in a good pasture, fed three times each day, with hogs following. For the first few days the feeding w-as light. For the last sixty days they were fed, on an average, a little less than one-third of a bushel per day each. When sold, the average weight was 1,851 pounds. In sixty days the average gain was 157 pounds per head. This is 14 pounds less than a somewhat better lot of steers made with like treatment in 1884. In same time two larger and somewhat better steers in same field made average gain of 182 pounds; two steers somewhat younger, 170 pounds; two high grade Jersey steers, just past two years old, 1(>2 pounds each. Even at the low prices then prevailing—$4.50 per 100 pounds, after *'shrinking" 3 per cent.—this gave a fair profit, especially when taking into account the value of the pork made of the undigested corn passing through the cattle; the manure left on the farm; the greater convenience and less cost of disposing of the <3orn directly from the field, and the addition of, say, one-half cent per pound to the value of the steers when feeding was begun. In 1886 a bunch of five good two-year-old steers, with like treatment with lot above described, except that corn feeding was begun August 15, made average gain of 194 pounds from September 1 to November 1, when they averaged 1,^64 pounds. A lot of 18 steers of poorer quality made average gain of 165 pounds in same time, then averaging 1,188 pounds. Six still lighter steers made average gain of 160 pounds, averaging 1,066 pounds. These cattle were sold, to be delivered in November, at $4.50 per cwt. for the first lot, and $4.25 for .the second. The following table, is a summary of the above statement, giving gains obtained for the last three years dining September and October with two-year-old cattle on pasture with corn, previously summered on grass:

N u m b e r of Animals. | Year. Ave. g a i n Sept. 1 to Nov. 1. 171 157 194 165 160

Twenty-four Ten Five Eighteen Six

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1884 1885

111

RATE OF GAIN.

In a series of tables following, the weights of a considerable number of cattle bred or fed on the farms at various periods are given, giving some basis for comparison of the rate of gain at different ages, under different conditions and by cattle of different breeds.