All being now ready at the Colony Houses, a large wire cage (the one now in use being eight feet long and two and a half feet wide, and eight inches high, with sliding doors at each end, and two soft leather handles to carry it by) is placed at the door opening into the chick runs from the Brooder House, and the youngsters are quietly driven into the cage. When a sufficient number to carry safely has been driven in, the cage is carried out, placed on the wagon and driven to the Range. The birds at this time are from eight to nine weeks old, we having found it is better to have a sufficient amount of brooder room to carry them to this age before placing on Range, as they are then much better feathered, and are less affected by changes of atmosphere. When the cages reach the Colony House the sliding door is placed directly in front of the small chick door, and both slides pulled up, and the chicks gently coaxed, by patting the box on the top and sides, to leave it for the Colony House. We place in each of these Colony Houses from two hundred and fifty to three hundred birds of this age. As the cockerels develop they are separated, and those which are perfect in formation, and as to toes, five pointed combs, etc., and give promise of growing into proper Breeders, are placed in the Cockerel House, and given the Range of the large enclosure surrounding this House. Until well along in the Summer, when the youngsters are first placed in the Colony House, we make it a practice to hang, directly in the center of the House and within about three feet of the floor, a large barn lantern, and with the window drops closed this produces a very considerable amount of heat, and helps materially to give a feeling of comfort and contentment to the birds in their new quarters. [Illustration: COLONY RANGE FEED AND WATER WAGON WITH “BILLY” IN THE SHAFTS] The afternoon following the day in which chicks are put into the Colony Houses (which means that they have been confined for about twenty-four hours), they are let out, but not until four o’clock, and they find their grain ration scattered close to the door of the House. In fact, it is not scattered until the small chick doors are opened for them to come out, and then it is thrown on the runs, and through the doors, as well as on the ground directly in front. The grain lying in the runways acts in a double way; it entices them out, and as they see it on the ground they eat very little on the runs, but later, after they have cleaned up all on the ground, that lying on the chick runs attracts them on back into the House at night.