Comparison of methods of full-feeding yearling steers

Packers are demanding finished cattle that grade Good and Choice and meet certain carcass specifications. This requires that more cattle be full-fed. This program can easily be planned by the Southeastern area farmer who is able to make optimum use of pasture and roughage with a limited full-feeding period to meet the packer and consumer demand. With the constantly increasing costs to farmers, efficient methods of feeding must be developed. Part-time farmers and farmers who finish cattle as a secondary source of income need an efficient feeding method that takes less regularity than the hand feeding method. Further, there is a trend in the Southeast toward more use of shelled corn due to picker-sheller combines and low relative cost of transportation of shelled corn from the Midwest by barge. Some feed processing plants have been equipped to prepare and deliver mixed feeds to the feeder. This gives the cattle feeder an opportunity to self-feed cattle without becoming involved in processing or handling any feed. In commercial feedlots, labor, feed efficiency, and disease are major factors in determining profit and loss. With improved cow-calf herds for the production of feeder cattle, Tennessee and the Southeast have become a good location for feedlot operations. The feeding experiments described in this thesis were designed to compare the results of finishing yearling steers in dry-lot by two methods of hand f\ill-feeding and two methods of self-feeding.