Text 2. Stocker Program

A stocker is a young animal that is being fed and cared for in such a way that growth rather than an improvement in condition may be realized. Stockers or stock cattle are of two kinds: heifers that are intended for use in the breeding herd, and steers and heifers that are intended for the market as feeders or are intended for fattening by the present owner. With both kinds of stockers the principal purpose in the mind of the owner is to affect as much econ­omy in feeding and management as is consistent with normal growth and development. Necessarily then, stockers are handled only by farmers or ranchers who have much cheap feed, either in the form cheap pasture or cheap harvested roughage such as hay, straw, fodder, and silage. Since stock heifers that are intended for breed­ing purposes are in demand principally in the breeding centers where they have been produced, few animals of this class are to be found outside such areas. In general, their method of management is much like that of the breeding herd.

With stockers intended for the market, however, we have a some­what different, situation. Such cattle may be grown out in the region where they were bred and reared, by allowing them to graze grass land of the same character as that used by their mothers: or they may be shipped soon after they are weaned, either to grazing areas that are not fully stocked with cows and young calves, or to grain- growing sections where they ultimately will be fattened. In grain sections their feed consists mainly of the aftermath of meadows, legume pasture crops grown in the regular farm rotation, stalk fields, oat straw, legume hay, and silage. Many cattle feeders of the Corn Belt make a practice of buying their cattle as calves or yearlings in the fall and carrying them on such feeds through the winter or for a full year before putting them into the feed lot. In this way the by­products of grain farming arc utilized; any undesirable or unthrifty cattle are weeded out before the use of expensive feeds is begun; and, what is probably most important of all, the cattle are purchased when market conditions are particularly favorable to the buyer.

Stock cattle may be put in at almost any time of year on a well-diversified farm.

Text 3. Cattle Utilize Pasture Crops

A more efficient utilization of all farm products is one of the important problems of the general farmer. With these coarse rough­ages beef cattle offer a solution that is usually found satisfactory. Mature beef cows can be maintained satisfactorily on rations com­posed of roughage alone, whereas steers that are being finished for the market consume 50 to 300 per cent as much roughage as grain, depending on the degree to which their grain ration is limited. Beef cattle are well adapted to utilize the surplus roughages that are produced under a system of general farming.

Cattle Utilize Pasture Crops. The importance of pastures and the place of beef cattle in their utilization upon ranches is taken for granted. On the contrary, the importance of pasture crops in the non- ranching areas of the country is often overlooked. Beef cattle make it possible for the permanent and rotation pastures to contribute a fair share of income on the farms in this vast area.

In less favored parts of the country, real efforts are being made to reclaim and rebuild soils no longer able to support cash crops. How­ever, without beef cattle and other ruminants to convert the grass and roughage produced on these lands into income, such reclama­tion is economically impossible.

Pastures necessarily occupy a large portion of the total farming area in this country.

TEXT 4. The Choice of the Foundation Breeding Stock

The choosing of the animals that are to be the foundation stock for the breeding herd is a matter of prime importance. Far too often insufficient attention is given to their selection. Particularly is the young breeder, in his eagerness to start operations, likely to take too little time to consider properly just what animals will best suit his needs. He grows impa­tient at what seems to him to be a loss of time and to get started he purchases the animals that are immediately available, even though he knows full well that they fall far short of the kind he really wants. Such a procedure is to be avoided, for usually a herd that is estab­lished hastily in this way is found to be so unsatisfactory that it is soon replaced either by cattle of much higher merit or by some project which is entirely different from a beef breeding herd.

Once a herd is established it is usually the best idea to raise one's own replacement heifers. This is because of the disease control problem present when outside animals are added, rather than from the standpoint of making progress in improvement in performance and type. Decisions have to be made almost every time a calf crop is weaned in order to choose the best heifers to keep, but since only a few cows are replaced each year, these decisions are not nearly so important as those involved in laying the foundation.

In some ways it is unfortunate that we have several breeds of beef cattle of the same general type, because many men waste considerable time and effort in attempting to decide which breed is best for their particular conditions.