----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrienne Smith"
>Anyone know when feed-lot practices started in the US or has meat always
been raised that way here?

If you're asking about graining beef prior to slaughter, I think it's
possible that feedlot practices were/are a commercial extension of what
small farmers had been doing all along.  My 86-year-old father was raised on
a farm.  He says they fed some shell corn for a few weeks to the beeves they
killed in order to fatten them up.

Theola