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Show LIVE STOOL Marking Polled Cattle. Thomas McFarlane, secretary of the American Aberdeen-Angus Breeders' association, has the following to say regarding the marking of polled animals: ani-mals: Cattle uniform In color and without horns need permanent and ready means of Identification. The use of ear tags, marked halters, tattooing, tat-tooing, branding of body or hoof, etc., have nqt proved permanent nor entirely en-tirely satisfactory. Notching tho cars of a young animal marks it for life. Tho hair grows over tho marking, but marks remain and can bo readily distinguished. dis-tinguished. Tho objection to this method aro not serious when compared com-pared to tho advantages rosulttng from certain Identification of tho animal. an-imal. Such ear marks can bo dupll- 'MTMt IIOHTVIIW. lirTill. irLAKATIO. cated upon certificates of registry and thus pass from owner to owner, as a constant means of identification. As in this system the marks, In caso of error, cannot bo rubbed out, care Is required to Becuro accuracy. The operator op-erator requires a rubber stamp showing show-ing tho cars unnotched. With thoso ho can Btamp first a scries of Impres-Blons Impres-Blons of tho head and ears upon tho pages of a record book and also upon a sheet of paper, notching and numbering number-ing the impression In the book Just ns ho proposes to notch tho ears of tho animals to be marked, making the Impression and marks also on tho sheet of paper to correspond. Then, with this duplicato sheet in hand, when doing tho work, ho can bo euro to mark tho animals exactly as shown In his recard book. For numbering polled cattle bo that tho markings shall bo reliable and permanent, tho plan Indicated by tho accompanying Illustration Is presented. Tho explanation is as follows: A notch in bottom of left ear equals 1; two notches equal 2. A notch In top of left ear equals 3; two notches, 6; three notches, 9. A notch in bottom of right car equals 10; two notches equal 20. A notch In top of right car equals 30; two notches 60; three notches 90. A notch In end of left ear equals 100. A notch In end of right car equals 200. A hole In end of left ear oquals 400. A hole In end of right ear equals 500. A hole In bottom of left ear equals 1.000. Numbers can thus be made from 1 to 1,000. The following Is an example: exam-ple: One notch In bottom of left ear. ... 1 Two notches In top of loft oar.,.. 6 One notch In bottom of right ear. . 10 One notch In end of right ear 200 Total 217 8oft Corn Gives Qood Results. From The Farmers' Review: curing the past year thero has been much difference dif-ference of opinion among stockmen concerning tho feeding value of soft corn causod by the early September frost of 1902. Early last October Professors Kennedy and Holdon of tho Iowa Agricultural College Issued a report showing the chemical analysis analy-sis of soft corn and discussing the feeding value of tho same. They claimed claim-ed that on a dry matter basis it was equal to maturo corn for foodlng purposes. pur-poses. On account of tho large amount of moisture present more would have to be fed to get good results. re-sults. At that time the Animal Industry In-dustry department commencod a practical prac-tical feeding experiment to test the same. Sixteen steers of uniform breeding breed-ing and quality were divided Into two lots of eight each. Ono was fed on maturo corn grown In 1900, and the other on the soft corn of 1902. These steers wore fed six months and marketed mar-keted on April 16th in Chicago. Each lot was sold separately, but the buyers could not see any difference, thus they both brought the Bame price, $5.25 per hundred, within 16 cents of the top of a dull, slow market. Tho results of tho slaughter test showed the soft corn lot to kill out C0.8 per cent dressed meat Tho mature corn lot 60 per cent dressed meat The gains made by the lots wore practically practical-ly the same and tho number of pounds of corn required to produce one pound of gain was almost the samo, being slightly In favor of tho maturo corn. Valuelng the maturo corn at 55 cents per bushel and the soft corn at 30 cents per bushel, there was a difference differ-ence of almost 3 cents per pound in the cost of producing ono oound or gain In favor of tho cattlo fod on soft corn. Full details of this experiment will bo Issued In bulletin form at an early date. W. J. Kennedy, Iowa Agricultural Ag-ricultural College. |
