"Corn Belt" Cattle Feeding in Eastern Colorado's Irrigated Valleys

F NOR several years the total value of cattle and calves sold alive in Weld County, (Fig. 1), has exceeded that of any other county in the nation.' The spectacular rise in cattle production in this county, and in other irrigated areas in eastern Colorado, is attributable to the intensive use of farmlands for feed crop production and as feed lot bases. Since the middle 1930's the number of cattle on feed in has increased by over 200 per cent (Table I). Some 15 per cent of this traditional range state's beef cattle were in feed lots on January 1, 1953.2 Only eight states in the nation, all in the Corn Belt except California, exceed in the number of cattle on feed. Moreover, the concentration of the pasture and pen fattening industry within circumscribed irrigated areas, gives these farmlands most of the aspects of a mixed farming Corn Belt economy. Extending from the wheat and range lands of eastern westward along the South Platte River, cattle production on irrigated farms increases until it reaches its maximum on the northern Piedmont (Fig. 1). Here the South Platte River and its eastward flowing tributaries provide abundant irrigation water for the raising of lush pastures and bumper crops of grain and sugar beets used to fatten cattle. Although 88 per cent of the State's feeder animals are located in this northeastern area, almost the entire remaining 12 per cent are found on irrigated farms in the eastern Arkansas River Valley.3 Although not all the dots in the two feeding areas shown in Figure 1 represent feeder cattle, the intensity of cattle raising in these river valleys contrasts sharply with the diffusion of animals on the surrounding ranges. production on Colorado's farmlands is big business. Passing through the two feed lot areas one sees prosperous farms of moderate size, 80 to 320 acres, many of which, however, boast large modern feeding pens next to the farmsteads. Adjacent to a sugar mill a sea of cattle several thousand in number, feeding in acres of pens, may startle the outsider (Fig. 2). Seldom do 1 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Agriculture: i950. Vol. V, Special Reports, Part 3, Ranking Agricultural Counties, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1952, p. 8. 2 Derived from data in the following sources: U. S. Department of Agriculture Cooperating with the State of Department of Agriculture, Bur. of Agr. Econs., Crop and Reporting Service, Livestock on Farms: January 1, Denver, January 16, 1953, pp. 1-2; Cattle on Feed: January 1, 1953,1 Denver, January 15, 1953, pp. 1-2; Department of Agriculture Cooperating with the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bur. of Agr. Econs., Agricultural Statistics, 1950, Vol. 1, No. 2, Denver, January, 1952, p. 87. 3 Department of Agriculture Cooperating with the U. S. Department of Agriculture: Colorado Agricultural Statistics: 1950, P. 89

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