Grain and Mash Once a Day
From this on the regular routine of Range feeding is followed. The Range Feed Wagon is low geared and broad tired. On the rear of the wagon there is a large, square tank, carrying some two hundred gallons of water. The faucet for drawing the water is placed on the bottom and center of the rear, the tank being placed on the wagon with a slight incline, and is of inch size so as to facilitate the rapid filling of the drinking fountains, which are placed directly underneath it. The front part of the wagon carries the tubs of mash and the grain ration. As the Colony Houses are laid out symmetrically the broad tires of the wagon soon wear smooth roads in front of them, and heavy loads are readily pulled over the Range streets. The Houses are placed from side to side about eighty feet apart. From the front of the Houses on one street to the rear of the House on the next street is about one hundred feet.
The question of shelter on the Range was quite a problem at first, and to meet it in a measure we set out shelters, which were constructed by stretching roofing over frames about twelve feet square, and set up some two and a half feet on stakes driven into the ground.
It had been planned to carry the Colony Range in Timothy and Clover, but we lost the catch, and as the ground had been very heavily fertilized with the litter from the Laying Houses, a very rank and luxuriant growth of all kinds of Flora sprang up, and we found that what seemed to us a piece of very hard luck in losing the catch, was really a blessing in disguise, for this rank growth of Flora, even in its first year, was of sufficient height to give very considerable shelter to the large flocks on the Range, and with the Colony Houses just off the ground, the improvised shelters were practically abandoned by the birds, and so they have been removed.