River Junction Tribune

Experiment Station Steers Ready for Exhibition
Here is one of the pens of grade Angus steers which the North Florida Experiment Station will display at the annual Jacksonville Fat Stock Show and Sale next Tuesday and Wednesday. The solo picture shows a 1,250 pound Angus steer which is one of the prizes of the Experiment Station herd and is expected to sell as a prime. These are not pure-blood cattle but are raised to show the advantages of good blood in a herd. (story on page 4.)

Complete Tests of Show Cattle

Charts giving statistical results of feeding trials conducted over a four-month period at the North Florida Experiment Station with Hereford, Angus and Brahma steers will be shown at the station's educational exhibit at the seventh annual Jacksonville Fat Stock Show and Sale Tuesday and Wednesday. Five pens containing 48 steers of the three breeds tested will be exhibited.

The first shipment of cattle for the exhibit will leave Quincy Saturday by truck. V. Elliott Whitehurst, animal husbandman at the station, will be in charge of the exhibit.

The first feeding trial was made to compare the values of kudzu and peanut hay as roughage in fattening steers. It was conducted by feeding two pens of 10 Angus steers each diets differing only in that one pen received kudzu hay and the other peanut hay.

The results showed that there was relatively little difference between the average daily gain of steers fed on the two hays, but Mr. Whitehurst said the feeding value of kudzu was greater. The cattle consumed about 32 pounds more peanut hay than kudzu to show a 100-pound gain.

The second trial was made to compare the gains of Angus and Brahma steers on the same type of feed. The results showed that the average daily gain for Angus was slightly greater than that for Brahmas and that the Brahmas required more cottonseed meal.

Mr. Whitehurst said he believed prices at the stock show will show that the sale value of the Angus steers had increased more in proportion to the feed consumed during the trials than the Brahmas. He estimated that at the start of the feeding period the Angus were worth about two cents a pound more than the Brahmas and that at sale time they probably would bring at least three cents a pound more. The Hereford tests have not been completed.

Experiment station cattle are scheduled to be displayed only as an educational feature and will not be entered in competition with privately owned cattle.

Entries of other Gadsden County cattle originally scheduled to be in the show dwindled this week when J. W. Woodward of the American Sumatra Tobacco corporation announced he would not show this year. He explained that a technicality of the show rules stipulated that entries must be fed within Florida for the four months immediately preceding the show. His animals had been quartered at the Amsterdam farm in Georgia.

George W. Monroe, will enter two carloads in the show, competing for the first time. Monroe entries will include cattle saved from a burning barn at the Mitchell farm in Scotland last week.

While Mr. Woodward abandoned his plan to show in Jacksonville he announced he would enter several steers at a livestock show in Albany, Ga., next week at Cudahy's packing plant.