BREEDING AND FEEDING OF LIVE STOCK.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2174, 12 February 1881, Page 3

BREEDING AND FEEDING OF LIVE STOCK.

[“ Prairie Former.’’

The enormous and rapidly increasing demand for meat, which characterizes tho food markets of these days, has reacted in a remarkable manner upon the nature of tho animals that supply it. Formerly tho animals that furnished pork, mutton and beef, were allowed to attain the age of three years old and upwards, before they were considered to be “ripe,’’ for the butcher; but now sheep and pigs are perfectly matured at the early age of one year and two-year-old oxen furnish a large quota of the beef in our markets, as well as for export while alive. The socalled improvement of stock is simply the forcing them into an unnatural degree of fatness at an early age; and that end is attained by dexterous selection end crossing of breads, by avoidance of cold, by diminishing as much as possible their muscular activity, and lastly, ond chiefly, by overfeeding them with grain.

Many feeders as well as breeders of stock look upon the monstrously fat bulls and cows of prize celebrity as normal types of tho bovine tribe. It requires but little argument to refute so fallacious a notion. No doubt it is desirable to encourage the breeding of those varieties of animals which exhibit tho greatest disposition to fatten, and to arrive early at maturity ; but tho forcing of individual animala into an unnatural state of obesity, except for purely experimental purposes, is a practice which cannot be too strongly deprecated. If breeders contented themselves with handing over to the butcher their huge living blocks of fat, the matter would not, perhaps, be very serious ; but unfortunately, it is too often the practice to tarn them to account as sires and dams. Every such extremely fat animal entered for competition amongst the breeding stock at our fairs ought to be disqualified. Unless parents are healthy and vigorous their progeny are almost certain to be unhealthy and weakly ; and it is inconceivable that an extremely obese bull and an unnaturally fat cow could bo the progenitors of healthy offspring. Wo should by all means improve our live stock ; but we should be careful not to overdo the thing. If we must have ponderous bulls and cows at our fairs, let us condemn to speedy immolation these unhappy victims to a most absurd fashion, but in tho name of common sense let us leave the perpetuation of the species to individuals in a normal state, whose muscles are not replaced by fat, and whose lungs are capable of effectively performing the function of respiration. At almost every agricultural fair, overfeeding appears to be the rule alike as regards cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses. Especially the the horsea of heavy breeds are so loaded with fat, that an advocate for the legalising of the sale of horse flesh has good opportunity for dilating on the beef-producing properties of some of our breeds of horses. Though tho evils of these practices are recognised by many breeders, no plan has hitherto been devised which can bo satisfactorily carried out at the shows. The system thus continues, and tho best animals of the best herds of the various breeds are in many cases sacrificed to a system with which many of the most intelligent exhibitors and owners of stock are themselves dissatisfied. Admitting that the show of live stock at onr fairs is a school for educating the agricultural mind—presenting some of the best specimens of tho respective breeds, and showing prominently the qualities which render such breeds valuable - the advantages accruing from tho exhibitions are surely dearly bought by tho sacrifice of many of the best animals for breeding purposes, by the common system of over-feeding or I forcing.