£8 To £10 A Head Profit On U.S.A. Cattle Fattening

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18763, 20 July 1935, Page 13

£8 To £lO A Head Profit On U.S.A. Cattle Fattening

N interesting description of the methods employed in the fattening of cattle in the portions of the United States which lie lias been visiting is contained in a letter which n Hastings resident has received from a Wairori farmer, who is at, present touring that country arid who writes from Detroit. This farmer has taken the opportunity of inspecting many fat stock arid stud farms during his visit and states that fattening methods arc vastly different from those employed in the Dominion. The principal fattening feeds for entile lire maize, soya bean and hay. The soya beans are cut when the pods are commencing to ripen and arc described in growth By this farmer as not unlike the Canadian Wonder variety of bean so well known in New Zealand, but the stems and the pods of the soya are slightly larger. Cattle for Fattening. Tn the- majority of eases, cattle for fattening arc yarded and housed, be : big fed maize, grain, beans.and hay for six to eight-months, until in most instances, they become so fat that, they are unable to walk without difficulty. All .the fat cattle .aye slaughtered- between the, : agi?s of IS. months, and two and a-half years and under these methods appear to put on more lean meat than is the case with cattle fattened under our New Zealand conditions. At the Chicago stockyards, the writer saw 25 sets of scales, all the cattle eritering the yard being put over the scale and sold on weight at so much per “hundred.” The price for chillers at the time that ;h« visited the yards was To cents, or about 7-Iff in English money, so that well finished beasts netted from i£3o to £4O each. Fattcners told him that after the costs of housing and concentrated, feeding on the lines mentioned above had been carried out they were left with from £8 to £lO per head. Claims of Soya Beans. The claims of soya beans to attention as a stock fodder have apparently much impressed this farmer, foi he writes that these beans are perhaps the principal factor in rearing and fattening stock under the American conditions, which he has seen to date. As an indication of the quantities grown in America, he points out that in the State of Illinois alone last season, 1,800,000 acres were under cultivation for soya bean growing. The advantage,of tho bean over maize is that it is not in the ground so long and therefore fits in bettor with tho general farming programme.