Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1878 — Fattening Stock in Winter. [ARTICLE]

Fattening Stock in Winter.

It is patent to all who have made live stock a study, that one of the indispensable conditions to success is that they be kept both dry and warm. That is, they should not be exposed to storms of rain nor the freezing winds of winter. It is well known that animals cannot be successfully fattened in winter, nor can they be made to more than hold their own even under the best feeding, unless they be provided with good warm quarters in stables, or the equivalent in well-covered sheds, where the wind may not reach them. Even where good sheds are provided, the stock is checked and does not gain flesh during the prevalence of storms, and very oftr en with the greatest care, animals during such periods will lose flesh, despite the efforts to prevent it. To keep the animal economy intact, a certain quantity of food is necessary. All the animal eats over and above the quantity necessary to supply . waste.goes to increase the original weight. If »t takes a bushel of com to keep up the animal heat and waste daily, and a bushel is all the animal can consume, then the feeder loses daily the bushel so fed. If a bushel of corn worth forty cents bo capable of making eight pounds of flesh, worth five cents per pound, and the bushel makes this eight pounds over and above the animal waste, the feeder, saves the value of the manure, and the difference in transportation, of, 8 vs. 50 pounds to market.. He also saves the difference in the value of a steer weighing, say 1,200 pounds in ordinary flesh, and worth three cents per pound, and, the fattened one, weighing 1,400 pounds, and worth five cents per pound fat, this would amount to $34, and would pay for feeding eighty-five bushels of corn. In this case, to make all come gut right, the eighty-live bushels of corn must have produced 200 pounds of gain or nearly two and a third for each bushel fed. As a rule, stock fed in the fields increase but little if any during winter, 100 pounds gaiirto the steers is a very good one. In stables, where the conveniences for feeding are good, 200 pounds and over may easily be laid on, unless the season be exceptionally untoward; and, here again, the disability will act with greater force out of doors than in. The principal question is, Will it pay better to feed out of doors, where the stock are subject to storms, in any event? Decidedly no; shelter of some kind is essential to success. Good sheds, protected by timber, will keep out rain, and also cold to a good degree. For the prairie, the need of artificial shelter is more pronounced. Then they must be made both wind and rain proof. Then, with water in abundance,! stock may.be successfully and economicallyfattened, with corn at average Western prices. But, the greater tne value of corn, the greater the economy or increased shelter. —Prairie Farmer.