(4) Serious losses may occur where profit was expected through a rise in the price of foodstuffs. Scarcity in food supplies, due to an unfavorable season, often compels the stockman to sacrifice animals that he has been raising for two or three years. It is sometimes asserted that, although society suffers from short crops, the farmer is benefited, because the increase in price is greater than the decrease in yield. One year, for example, the decrease in the production of maize was 30%, while the increase in price was 50%. If, therefore, the crop had been sold it would have brought more than the crop of the previous year. The farmers, however, require about 80% of the maize crop in the production of their live stock, so that when there was a decrease of 30% in the yield of maize, many had none to sell, while others had to purchase maize at increased prices or use other crops, such as oats, which they might otherwise have sold. Still others would be compelled to sell, at reduced prices, their partially fattened animals. There is a constant fluctuation in the price of animals and animal products, due to variation in yield and hence in price of food supplies. It requires continual vigilance on the part of the stockman to secure food supplies at such cost as will enable him to secure a profitable return from his animals.
CHAPTER XVI
RETURNS FROM ANIMALS
In any well-considered plan of farm operations it is essential to have some basis for estimating the amount of food required to carry live stock through the year in order to know, on the one hand, what portion of the crops raised are available for sale and, on the other hand, what food supplies must be purchased. A requisite of any successful farm enterprise is a proper consideration of these market conditions. While domestic animals consume a variety of foods, and each class of animals has special food requirements, the basis of calculation of the needed supplies is fortunately not complicated. Twenty-five pounds of dry matter are required per day for each thousand pounds of live weight of horses, cattle and sheep, and for swine about 40 pounds for each thousand pounds of live weight. It may be more convenient to calculate the food requirement of swine on the basis of increase in live weight, allowing five pounds of dry matter for each pound of increase. Some further details as to food requirements will be found in the paragraphs which follow.
COST OF PRODUCING HOGS
Pigs possess two characteristics which make them unique among domestic animals. They consume concentrated and easily digested foods only, and they produce nothing but meat, fat and bristles. Cattle furnish milk and hides; sheep, wool, hides and sometimes milk; fowls furnish eggs and feathers. On account of their limited range of usefulness and because of the high value of much of the food consumed, it would not be possible to rear swine economically were it not for their prolificacy and the fact that they are employed largely as scavengers. Many cattle are fattened without direct profit. The indirect profit comes from the sale of the pigs which have followed the cattle. It is customary to mature one hog with little or no additional food while fattening two steers. In many well-known ways, pigs consume products which would otherwise be wasted. This is especially true in the more densely settled sections of the world.
On account of their prolificacy, the returns obtained for the amount of capital invested is greater than in the case of sheep, cattle or horses. Ten sows, worth $100 to $150, are sufficient to produce 100 pigs; 75 to 80 ewes, worth from $300 to $500, are required to produce an equal number of lambs; 110 cows, worth $4,500 to $6,000, to produce 100 calves; and 200 mares, worth from $20,000 to $30,000, to guarantee 100 foals. To put the matter in another way, the capital invested in swine may be reproduced in the offspring ten times in one year; the capital invested in horses not more than once in five years.
In general, 500 pounds of maize will produce 100 pounds of pork, which is equivalent to eleven pounds of pork from a bushel. Since hogs are so largely produced from maize, the price of maize and the price of pork are very closely related. For example, if maize is worth fifty cents a bushel, the grain required to produce a pound of increase in live weight will cost about 5 cents; if 40 cents a bushel, 4 cents; if 30 cents a bushel, 3 cents; and so on.
COST OF PRODUCING SHEEP