WHEN you’ve been mixing feed—even if you have a mechanical mixer into which you dump the ingredients—have you ever day-dreamed about a Rube Goldberg type of mechanism where a twist of a dial and a push of a button would produce just the right amount of just the right mixture, while you sat around and read yesterday evening’s paper?
That’s not just a dream! You can watch such a feed mill in operation at Capistrano Hereford Ranch, just two miles north of San Juan Capistrano—the place to which the swallows return in Southern California.
In operation for one year, the mill has a capacity of satisfying the appetites of 8,000 steers annually in the feed lot. It is entirely electric in operation, with 20 motors for 20 different operations and no belts or shafts to complicate the set-up.
The ranch is owned by Howard Krum and managed by his son, Charles. Assistant Manager W. C. Hatfield—you shouldn’t be surprised to learn—boasts a noteworthy background as a research engineer in electronics and mechanical engineering.
Experimental Work. In its feeding operations, Capistrano Hereford Ranch is working in close cooperation with the University of California to test experimental rations. Operating on a batch system, the mill can be set up instantly for a change in ration which makes it possible to feed any pen a different ration. The rations are worked out in advance and given to the mill operator, who sits before a master control panel, twists dials, pushes buttons and sets the automatic mechanism in operation.
These dials control the weight of concentrates to be automatically measured out from each of six storage bins. Below the control panel are six scale beams, attached directly to the release mechanism of a corresponding bin of concentrates. This allows the mixer to check the exact weight of the amount of each feed ingredient released for the specified ration. Augers under the floor of the mill then automatically take these various concentrates to the master mixer.
Chopped hay used in some of the mixtures is carried in the bale by a special conveyor over a magnet which takes out any foreign metal, to a hammer mill, blown up into a cyclone which removes the dust, then into a storage bin in readiness for inclusion in the various rations.
Numbering System. Once put together by the master mixers, the rations are passed through a molasses mixer and again automatically conveyed to storage bins. A numbering system is maintained to control the proper storage of each mixture and the feeding of this ration to the proper corral of feeder cattle. Batch No. 3 thus goes from the mixer into storage bin No. 3 and is fed to the steers in pen No. 3.
Even in the feeding operation, machinery plays the major role. Special trailers have been built to be towed behind tractors. Conveyor belts in the beds of these trailers keep the feed moving to the chutes on the sides of the conveyance and maintain a steady flow of the ration into feed mangers along the corrals as the trailer rolls along between rows of these feeding pens.
The electric motors which drive each separate operation in the mixing of the feed are wired with cut-out relays so that a breakdown along the line will immediately shut down all mechanism behind the point of trouble. Operations ahead of the trouble point proceed as scheduled. This prevents jamming up of the flow of concentrates on their way to the mixer.
The mill can turn out seven tons of feed an hour. The available electrical energy is sufficient to light a city of 3,000.
Highly Mechanized. As a matter of fact, the entire 7,500-acre Capistrano Hereford Ranch is on a highly mechanized basis. Roughly, the property is divided into 1,600 acres of barley, 31 acres of citrus, 125 acre of alfalfa and the remainder is grazing land.
The plan is to produce as much of the feed used in the feeding operation as possible. Cattle are carried on grazing land then finished off in the feed lot. Corrals are 100 feet wide and 400 feet deep, with a fall of nine feet from upper to lower ends. Liquids that drain down this slope go into a drainage sump and plans are already in the blueprint stage for dehydrating manure and producing a commercial fertilizer with a manure base. The engineers figure around seven tons of fertilizer a day can be produced.
One busy department at the ranch is the garage and service station where repair and lubrication work is handled for all ranch equipment. A trained repairman and lubrication expert is kept on the job constantly and the ranch management looks on this department as the very heart of their operation. “A mechanized operation can certainly be no more efficient than the condition in which the machinery is kept,” they point out.
Machines Aplenty. There’s plenty of machinery to keep up. Nine tractors are in use on the place and a 250-horsepower diesel engine is used for irrigation booster pump operation. Storage facilities on the ranch include tanks for 8,000 gallons of gasoline and 7,000 gallons of diesel oil.
Progress moves along so rapidly on Capistrano Hereford Ranch, you really can’t tell what may transpire before your next visit. You may even find the feeder cattle all on roller skates, so they’ll expend less energy getting up to the feed manger! — BOB ROBERTS
