Imperial Valley press., 1913-10-15

To fatten sheep two pounds of hay
and from one-half to one pound d
grain is required. Cattle to fatten re-
quire thirty-fve pounds of hay and
from six to sixteen pounds of grain
daily-eight pounds of grain being the
economical limit which the feeder can
afford today for fattening purposes.
In the west barley grain is pre-
ferred by many cattlemen, although
experiments are showing very favor
able results from cottonseed meal in
connection with the barley. In the
San Joaquin valley three pounds 81
each was fed with all the hay the cat
tie would eat. The cattle made a
daily gain of two and one-half
pounds. Barley and hay, six pounds
of the former and all of the latter the
cattle would eat, gave two pounds
daily gain; six pounds of cottonsesd
meal and hay gave one and one-ha +
pounds gain. The test was made in
the spring of the year, when all the
weather conditions were very favor
able. Otherwise the cottonseed meal
would certainly have made greater
gains than it did in comparison with
hay fed alone.
Barley or wheat is profitable with
sheep.
Plenty of good water is essential,
and bitches full Of stagnant water or
water riled by hogs are far from be-
ing desirable for cattle purposes.
In the fall the grain stubble fur
nishes a feed which can be very prof
itably fed off by utrning in the stock
to harvest such as may have escaped
the farmer. Wheat stubble has very
little leaf and does not possess very
high cattle feeding value. Barley
stubble is very good, however, and
possesses a cash value of from 25 to
so cents per acre. In general an
acre will support two steers for the
period of a month or twenty sheep
for the same length of time. Oat stub
BILE is of greater value than barley.
Hay stubble is superior to grain stub
BILE (referring to barley, wheat, oats
or other grains grown and cut for
hay), as much of the nutrition is still
retained in the stalk joints at the
time the crop is cut, thereby leaving
more nourishment behind for the cac-
tie.
Cattle do not eat barley grain stub
BILE until they have threshed out the
kernels by tramping over it, as the
boards tend to produce sore mouth.
As a result grain stubble does not last
as long as hay stubble, for the mess
ing and trampling spoil much Of the
grain.
Two other feeds which are finding
favor in the warmer countries are
Egyptian corn and sorghum. Of the
two Egyptian corn is favored over So
called sorghum. In corn pasture, un-
less the pastured stock IS very gentle,
the best practice consists in harvest
ing the crop and then turning the
cattle on to the stubble; otherwise
they frighten in the long corn end
tend to stampede. Good corn stubhie
has about the same value as barley
stubble and will support about the
same amount of stock, two steers to
the acre for a month.
In feeding the scheme should be -
turn the cattle on to roughage or
stubble, and as feed diminishes to
start furnishing hay and grain. Close
browsing of the pastures before sup
plying additional feed should be
guarded against. It is better tV be-
gin furnishing feed earlier and leave
little roughage until the end. The
cattle move about, thus aiding blood
circulation and thereby helping di-
gestion. The aim is to avoid pastur-
ing too much stock, while at the same
time a sufficient number must be
present to secure the proper utiliza-
tion of all feed present. AS the feed
diminishes the cattle should be worked
over and the weaker ones separated
out to be fed by themselves in another
field. But after they are classified
they should be left undistnrbed as
much as possible.