WINTER FEEDING OF CATTLE 1 a

WINTER FEEDING OF CATTLE

Extracted from Dominion Experimental Farms Publications chiefly, but drawing also on the
experiences of private experimenters

For further information on this subject write to your nearest Agricultural College or
Experimental Farm

ISSUED BY

EATON’S FARM NEWS SERVICE
WINNIPEG

Outdoor Winter Feeding of Cattle in Manitoba

[cat feeding and fattening of cattle in the open without the use of closed stables
can be done successfully in the Prairie Provinces is an assured fact.

In the past the farmer’s greatest obstacle in the fattening of cattle during the
Winter has been the high cost of suitable buildings; but it has been determined by a
number of feeders, among them being Mr. R. J. Speers, at Teulon, Manitoba, and Col.
Wm. Mullins, at Poplar Point, Manitoba, and others, that cattle can be fed outside with
only the roughest shelter provided. Profits of $300 to $500 per car, after deducting all
costs, have been realized.

The farm of Mr. Speers, at Teulon, Manitoba, has several large bluffs which provide
ideal shelter for the cattle. In the centre of one of these large bluffs Mr. Speers cleared
a space and erected eight corrals made of cedar posts with poplar poles laid between
them and wired together to a height of eight feet. All the corrals were intercom-
municable. Along the outside wall of the structure a shelter was erected of poplar
poles with a straw roof extending in the corrals sixteen feet. This was the only shelter
the animals. had, and it was only erected to cover them during snow storms and prevent
the snow from collecting on their backs and chilling them.

In size, these corrals were each two hundred by two hundred and twenty feet. In
the centre of each four corrals a well was drilled and water supplied to the four. The
water was always kept warm by means of ordinary tank heaters at a very moderate
cost. The use of warm drinking water aided digestion, whereas very cold water would
have been detrimenial.

At one time during the season there were as many as fifteen hundred head of cattle
and five hundred hogs being fed. This number of animals required very little labor to
feed, as most of the feed, which consisted of oat and barley straw and No. 2 upland
and swamp hay, was delivered by the farmers; and as all the cattle were fed from the
outside, the loads were simply delivered round the structure and the feed put into the
manger through the outside walls. At the same time there were self-feeders for the
grain feed, inside the corrals, which were kept filled with chopped, recleaned screen-
ings. As the screenings were drawn from the car, the feeders were filled and the
surplus of the load piled in sacks on the top of the feeders for future use; thus saving
handling more than once.

The cattle had free: access to the feeders at all times, and though they ate to excess
at first, they soon came down to normal rations.

The hogs were running among the cattle and picked up the chop that the cattle
dropped from the feeders, and very little else was fed to them. They had, like the
cattle, free access to the warm water at all times.

Most of these cattle came from the Western Provinces, were bought on the open
market in Winnipeg, and ranged all the way from $3.65 to $5.50 per hundred. They
were disposed of as the market warranted, and in a number of cases the huyers came
out and took out their requirements, paying $7.50 to $8.00 per hundred, [OVER