FEEDING CALVES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21216, 10 December 1938, Page 15

FEEDING CALVES

THE CREEP SYSTEM FOR BABY BEEF For the purpose of producing idea! baby beef the United States Department of Agriculture, and the West Virginian Agricultural Experiment Station, have been investing a method of “creep feeding” calves. Young beef calves are being given a supplementary feed, in small creeps, situated in the pastures, which are large enough to permit free access of calves, but too small for cows to enter. The object is to fatten the calves enough for marketing by the time they are weaned, or shortly afterwards. An officer in charge of the experiments reports that creep fed calves require only about half as much grain for each pound increase in weight as calves not creep fed, but carried until about a year old on a grain mixture and legume hay ration after weaning. Calves which were creep fed and marketed at weaning were given only pasture as their roughage, which was much cheaper than the hay required for the calves. Weighed Less Naturally the calves marketed at weaning, that is at eight or nine months old, weighed less than the older calves, but it was reported that the younger calves outdressed the others, and were better finished. Though not weighing as much, they turned out a higher proportion of meat, containing a more desirable proportion of fat. In America, many graziers are taking up this new method of marketing their beef. It will enable them not only to produce beef animals at a lower cost per pound, but to get a quick return on their money, and destroy the chances of their losing profits by carrying the animals longer.