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Show fSXivestock: Ranch efficiency is necessary if we are to avoid losses in the cattle business. busi-ness. There is no turning back to the old conditions of cheap labor, lower low-er taxes, nor anything else that we used to. get at less cost. The West is settling up land values have an upward up-ward tendency it costs labor more to live and our taxes are not going to be less. Leaning oni your neighbor won't help a bit. We may all be born equal, but we don't stay that way very long. I have a deep-seated conviction that too much help never did and never will develop our individuality and resourcefulness. re-sourcefulness. To the contrary, it encourages en-courages the habit of looking for help when the remedy lies within ourselves and we don't always stop to think that the other fellow's load may oe heavier than ours. Real help is that. yearlings. Undoubtedly, the trade has changed to that aged steers are seasonal sea-sonal instead of regular and as a practical proposition it don't pay to carry the bullock beyond a two-year-old.A few years ago 75 per cent of the total beef business consisted of heavy cattle. Today it is only 25 per cent. The handy type steers weigh around 1000 pounds. It is easily possible pos-sible to run the yearlings on the range until they get their growth and flesh sufficient to go to the feedlot, then finish them on concentrates and roughage the age of about 18 months, thus producing the right weight, the best finish, and the most merchantable. merchant-able. Of course, all of this depends a great deal on breeding: There is no section of . the United States that . can compete with the Southwest in which helps us to help ourselves. The thing that will keep the cattle business out of the red lies largely in better breeding by using enough pure-bred bulls, good, strong, healthy cows to get a few more and better calves, plus efficient feed, to keep the cow in good condition to carry and nurse the calf. One of our big ranchers told me that he always gave calves a little cottonseed meal or whatever grain was most available for feeding, while, the calf was young, thus relieving the cow and teaching the calf to eat. I just made up some figures to show what calves have been selling for as veal and they indicate that for the year 1929 and well into 1930, & calf weighing around 20O pounds would bring $25.00 to $30.00 and this class of meat food has not gone down in price so much as the cattle. The heavier kinds of calves weighing around 300 to 400 pounds show a greater decrease in price, but have brought from $30.00 to $40.00 per head on the market, largely for veal. Undoubtedly, our range practices must be changed and it seems important impor-tant now that each ranch study its problems to find out whether they want to turn the calves off for veal, to carry them on to weaning time for baby 'beef or to carry them on to production costs under favorable range conditions. So far as the breeding breed-ing herds are concerned the Southwest South-west also offers the greatest opportunity oppor-tunity for low production costs be-. be-. cause the animals, feed themselves 'very largely. The housing problem is inexpensive and there is a great abundance abun-dance of the best feeds at reasonable costs. The United Kingdom is now the source of supply for most of the , bulls used in the great cattle herds of the Argentina, Australia and New j Zealand. We can raise them and lay them1 down in those countries a whole lot cheaper than the United Kingdom can. This is big business well worth working for. 1 By the way, we should not underestimate under-estimate the importance to the livestock live-stock industry, of the Public Domain. There has been a tendency to open it up to settlers which may be all right- in ; certain instances, but when applied to our rough and mountainous sections, there is no chance of the settlers making a living, so the effect has been to take a lot of the grazing land out of the hands of the stock raisers without offsetting advantage. To the contrary, many of these settlers set-tlers have failed and the land has stood idle. The grazing fees collected by the Federal Government amounts to a considerable sum and it is difficult diffi-cult to see that any substantial part of our Public Domain may be put to better use. |