The Coconino sun., 1917-05-11
COOPERATIVE FEEDING TO
 SAVE RANGE CATTLE

The year 1917 is starting out badly for cattlemen in the west. A combin- ation of climatic feed conditions places
 us in critical position. According
 to all signs the winter has been the
 coldest, driest and latest in many
 years. The season is fully 4 weeks
 later than an average year. The val
 leys have suffered most, frost having
 cut vegetation back repeatedly. Not
 a sign of browsing is noticed in the
 valleys of the southern part of Ari-
 zona and vegetation has been almost
 dormant except miles back from the
 riverbottoms. Fortunately, in the
 higher lands frost was not so severe,
 but the season is backward there and
 water is becoming scarce. No signs
 of improvement are visible. If we do
 not get normal rains in June, it is
 probable that live stock will starve
 by thousands and 1917 will be as bad
 as 1890, when 80 per cent of the cattle
 died in southern Arizona. There is
 little or no feed available at the pres
 ent time and conditions are acute.
 Many animals are dying now. The young things will probably have most vigor, but even some of those will die. Old cows with calves after them will have the highest mortality.
 It is unfortunate that stockmen did not begin in the early days to store up and conserve feed for their animals. The old plan was to leave the animals alone and avoid handling them at all, so as to allow them to conserve their strength. This worked out all right before feeds were grown and no doubt the pioneers learned how to make the best of the business without feed. Future success in range prod uction, however, will result from the use of crops to supplement the range. In almost every district in Arizona there are certain areas which will grow reasonable quantities of crops at least three years out of five and these should be utilized to their max imum in raising crops to be held until the range is short.
 Cattle feeding is difficult problem, even where there is reasonable sup ply of nutritious feeds. The animals are scattered over the whole country and are especially wild. They are so reduced in condition that they can not stand being rounded up or driven; one must feed them at the waterholes where they come to drink. It is diff ficult to regulate the amount of feed each animal would consume and prac- tically all of the animals must be educated to eat certain of the concen- trated feeds.
 Cattle feeding on the open range must be a community undertaking. One can not afford to pay high prices for feed and distribute it among his cattle. The plan of CO., operation where it has been worked out sufficiently among cattlemen in such places as round-ups, in bull-buy- ing, and marketing indicate that cat tlemen could cooperate in saving their by feednig. It is important that they combine and work together | in order to reduce mortality. One can | not afford to feed COW or years on range and allow her to die at the end of that time for the want of 3 of cottonseed meal worth 2 cents day over period of 40 to 60 | days. For $3 to S5 it is often possible to tide an animal that would other wise die over short range. Such an animal should be worth at least S30. Surely it is a short-sighted policy to refuse an investment of $5. Unfor- cattlemen have neglected their animals, being willing to allow them to take care of themselves. This is an old-fashioned idea which is cer- tain to be abandoned in the near fut- ure. At this time, when we are inter- ested in conserving all the food prod dcts possible, stockmen should spend as much as $15 in the way of feed for cows on the range, if without feeding it were probable that half of them would die.