Gas SF 467
Book RAS
Gomistte 779
COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT:
ELMER
Ges 54) Ce oe
THE
National Standard
Squab Book.
4A PRACTICAL MANUAL GIVING COMPLETE AND PRECISE DIRECTIONS
FOR THE INSTALLATION AND MANAGEMENT OF
A SUCCESSFUL SQUAB PLANT.
ROW TO MAKE A PIGEON AND -SQUAB BUSINESS PAY. DETAILS OF
BUILDING, BUYING, HABITS OF BIADS, MATING, WATER-
ING, FEEDING, KILLING, COOLING, MARKETING,
SHIPPING, CURING AILMENTS, ETC.
Bye iL MERC. Cr:
Iiustrated with New Sketches, and Half Tone Plates from
Photographs Specially Made fer this Work.
BOSTON, MASS.
1905
LIBRARY of CONGRESS
fwo Copies received
MAR 3 1909
Gopyrigit cady
7 “E# 10,! j OS”
GLASS A& Aka No
Joss!
COPY B.
CopyricHT, 192, By Ermer C. RICE
CopyricHT, 1903, By ELMER C. RICE.
CopyricHT, 19(4, By ELMER C. RICE.
CopyricHT, 1905, By Ermer C. RICE
All rights reserved.
A Weut1-Bui.t NEsT.
>
> \
6S
Jee
Preface.
This Manual or Handbook on squabs is written to teach people, begin-
ners mostly, not merely how to raise squabs, but how to conduct a squab
and pigeon business successfully. We have found breeders of squabs who
knew how to raise them fairly well and took pleasure in doing so, but
were weak on the business end of the industry. The fancier, who raises
animals because he likes their looks or their actions, or because he hopes
to beat some other fancier at an exhibition, is not the man for whom we
have written this book. We have developed Homer pigeons and the
Homer pigeon industry solely because they are staples, and the squabs
they produce are staples, salable in any market at a remunerative price.
The success of squabs as we exploit them depends on their earning capac-
ity. They ave a matter of business. Our development of squabs is based
on the fact that they are good eating, that people now are in the habit of
asking for and eating them, that there is a large traffic in them which may
be pushed to an enormous extent without weakening either the market or
the price. If, as happens in this case, pigeons are a beautiul pet stock as
weil as money makers, so much the better, but we never would breed any-
thing not useful, salable merely as pets. It is just as easy to pet a prac-
tical animal as an impractical animal, and much more satisfying.
This Manual is the latest and most comprehensive work we have done,
giving the results of our experience as fully and accurately as we can pre-
sent the subject. It is intended as an answer to the hundreds of letters we
receive, and we have tried to cover every point which a beginner or an
expert needs to know. It is a fault of writers of most guide books like
this to leave out points which they think are too trivial, or ‘‘which every-
body ought to know.” It has been our experience in handling this subject
and bringing it home to people that the little points are the ones on which
they quickest go astray, and on which they wish the fullest information.
After they have a fair start, they are able to think out their operations
for themselves. Accordingly we have covered every point in this book in
simpie language and if the details in scme places appear too common-
place, remember that we have erred on the side of plainness.
The customers to whom we have sold breeding stock have been of great
help to us in arranging and presenting these facts. We asked them to
tell us just the points they wished covered, or covered more fully, or just
where our writings were weak. They replied in a most kindly way, nearly
every letter thanking us heartily, and brimming over with enthusiasm for
the squab industsy.
It has surprised a great many peopie to learn that Homer pigeons are
such a staple and workable article. They have been handled by the old
(5)
6 National Standard Squab Book,
methods for years without their great utility being made plain. When we
first learned about squabs, we were struck by the impressive fact that
here was something which grew to market size in the incredible time of
four weeks and then was marketed readily at a good profit. The spread
of that knowledge will make money for you. Show your neighbors the
birds you buy of us, and tell them the facts, and perhaps give them a
squab to eat, then you will find a quick call for all the live breeders you
can supply.
The procedure which we advise in this National Standard Squab Book
is safe and sound, demonstrated to be successful ‘by hundreds of our cus-
tomers, many of whom started with no knowledge except what we were
able to give them by letter or word of mouth. We have abandoned all
instruction which does not stand the test of time and locality and give
only facts of proven value, of real, practical experience.
ELMHER C. RICE.
Boston, August, 1902.
POSTSCEILPD.
This work has met with so much favor during the past year, and has
sold so largely, in excess of expectations, that we wish to thank our
friends everywhere for their cordial support. The Appendix A which
appears at the back of this edition was added last February, and it is
our intention to keep the werk up to date by revisions and additions at
least twice yearly. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the
proof of these squab teachings is shown in the successes made by our
thousands of customers with no other knowledge of squabs than this as
a guide. Our correspondence, now having extended over a long period,
shows conclusively that beginners find all questions answered in this book,
and go forward confidently and surely to success.
Hey Be
Boston, August, 1903.
Contents.
CHAPTER ]
Squabs Pay : :
CHAPTER TI,
An Easy Start . ‘ 5 : : :
CHAPTER ge
The Unit House :
CHAPTER: IV.
The Nappies and Nests . : : : .
CHAPTER V.
Water and Feed se ig
CHAPTER VI.
Laying and Hatching
CHAPTER VII.
Increase of Flock
CHAPTER VIII.
Killing and Cooling .
CHAPTER IX,
The Markets
CHAPTER X.
Pigeons’ Ailments
CHAPTER XI,
Getting Ahead
CHAPTER XII.
Questions and Answers
PAGE.
31
35
45
53
57
61
64
66
72
‘THOROUGHBREDS.
Rational Standard Squab Book.
CHAPTER I.
SQUABS PAY.
Experience of a Customer who Started in January, 1902, Erected a Plant
Worth $3,000 and Made Money Almost from the Start—Settlements
ot Squab Breeders in Iowa, California, New Jersey and Pennsyl-
vania—Large Incomes Made from Pigeons—Squab Plants Known to
be Making Money—The Hard Working Farmer and the Easy Work-
ing Squab Raiser—No Occupation for a Drone—No Exaggeration.
“Will it pay me to raise squabs?” is the first question which the be-
ginuer asks. We take the case of a mau who bought a Manual in January,
1902. His boys had kept a few pigeons but had never handled them in a
commercial way, nor tried to make any money with them. The reading
of the book gave him the first real light on the squab industry. Possibly
he was more ready to believe because he knew from his own personal ex-
perience that a squab grows to market size in four weeks and is then
readily marketable. Anyway, he started at once to build a squab house
according to the directions given. The ground was too hard for him to
get a pickaxe into, so he laid the foundation timbers on bricks, rushed
the work ahead with the help of good carpenters and sent on his order for
breeding stock. In the course of a few weeks he ordered a second lot of
breeders, followed by a third and a fourth, and he kept adding new build-
ings. When spring came and the ground softened, he jacked up his first
squab house, took out the bricks at the four corners and put in cedar
posts. By the middle of July he had five handsome squab houses and fly-
ing pens, all built by skilled labor in the best possible style at a cost of at
least $300 apiece. With his buildings and their fittings and his birds, his
plant now (August, 1902) stands for an expenditure of between $2,000 and
$3,000. His next move, this fall, will be to buy a farm where he can have
more room, and which will be auxiliary to his present plant.
This gentleman lives in a locality where he had to put up nice-looking
buildings, or the neighbors would have complained. He spent probably
three times more money on his buildings than the average beginner would
spend. He is a superintendent of a large manufacturing plant, a man of
push and energy, ard he has four young boys in his family who have
helped with the wife and grandfather to make the venture successful. It
has been a paying venture almost from the very start. Everything that
we wrote about squabs as money makers came true in his case. One of
(9)
IO National Standard Squab Book.
the sons, a lad of nineteen, came on to see us in August and told us the
story of their success. He was after more breeding stock. .He said he
had many calls from people who wished to buy stock of him, and he was
unable to supply all of them, but he did not intend to have money offered
him very iong without being able to pass out the birds. In other words,
they were going into squabs for ali they were worth. They had not done
any advertising, and had not solid live breeders to any extent, but figured
their profits solely on the sale of squabs to commission houses, and they
were getting for them just what we said the commission men would pay.
’Now if a well-to-do superintendent, filled with no desperate idea of
making squabs pay, can start with no experience, throw out money freely
like that and depend on his boys mostly to push the venture ahead, all
the while attending to a very large business, then we gs’ y that you can do
it tov, 10 matter who you are or where you live.
We have a great many visitors, some coming from remote points of the
United States. One of our visitors in the summer of 1902 was Mr. A. L.
Irurlong, from a little town in Iowa. Mr. Furlong said to us: “Iowa is
quite a squab-breeding state. There are plants in Ruthven, Osage, Wal-
lake and Estherville. The owner of a plant in Ruthven I know very well.
He showed me his account books; he was shipping from $700 to $800
worth of squabs last month. He is making a profit of $3,000 to $5,000 a
year. He ships te the Chicago market, as do nearly all the Iowa breeders.
He never gets less than $2.50 a dozen for his squabs. I am going to start
raising squabs myself.”
Mr. Furlong left an order for one of our Manuals, having given his first
one to his friend. He said that his friend was breeding common pigeons
and would like to know our methods. We discarded common pigeons some
time ago. If our Iowa friends will use Homer pigeons instead of common
ones, they will produce a much better squab and make more money.
We had a curious confirmation of the above in August, 1902, when Mr.
KE. H. Grice, who lives in the northern part ef Vermont, visited us. Mr.
Grice had just returned from a visit to the West, and stopped for a while
at Ruthven, Iowa, where he saw the plant above noted. The proprietor
referred Mr. Grice to us and advised him to start with Homer pigeons,
saying ‘that if he were to stock up again, it would be with Homer instead
of the common pigeons. Before leaving, Mr. Grice gave us an order for
100 pairs of our Homers.
The number of orders for breeding stock which we have received from
Iowa is out of proportion to any state near it, showing that these squab
plants are known throughout Iowa to be making money. The same is true
of California, also Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In the country around
Millville, Mauricetown aud Dividing Creek, all in the southern part of
New Jersey are hundreds of squab plants. The reason is that it has
spread from mouth to mouth there that there is big money in raising these
dainties. There are more squab breeders in eastern Pennsylvania and
southern New Jersey than there are chicken breeders. We went through
National Standard Squab Book. Il
that territory in June, 1902, noting the bui!ldiugs and methods of the squab
raisers there and finding out from them if they were satistied with the
finaucial returns. All were enthusiastic and said it was easy work, that
squabs beat nens easily and were much less care. The methods of some
of these breeders were extremely crude, the birds nesting in old boxes of
all sizes nailed to the walls of the squab houses, and apparently never
being cleaned. With no reflection on the squab raisers of Jersey, but in
order to demonstrate our point that the work is easy, we want to say
that the typical breeder in that country as we saw him was seated a good
part of the time on an old soap box, in or near his squab house, smoking
a pipe and taking life easy, with plenty of time to talk or read. Some-
body has said that a squab plant of 1,900 pairs of birds will pay better
than a farm. The contrast between the hard, grinding toil of the
man who works a large farm and the “standing around’ of the owner of
a squab plant is indeed a striking one. However, we do not speak of this to
give you the idea that money is going to flow into your lap just because
you buy some squab breeders of us. It is no work for a drone or a ‘‘get-
rich-quick’’ person whose enthusiasm runs riot for two weeks and then
cools off. Our class of trade is men and women of experience and reliable
common sense who have a knowledge of the worid and understand that
things come by work and not for the asking. The people who are able and
willing to pay us from $50 to $500 for a breeding outfit, as hundreds do,
are not caught by glittering promises, but have money laid by through
exercise of the qualities of bility and shr.wdness. The naturally care-
less, improvident person, who is generaliy in debt, should not start squab
raising. It is a sensible industry for sensible people.
laa a ace a
Da fax UV X MOVE? VY A\O
‘SNOMDIG NOL GAXIQD AG AVI GUV A MOVE H
BOO
Caton
CORT 8 AD a,
Sie
KS é
oe
Pe
og
itn et es 08
G
‘a
CHAPTER II.
AN EASY START.
No Special Form of Building Necessary—Points to Remember—Shelter
Adapted to the Climate—How io Use a Building Which You Now
Have—Squab House and Mying Pen—Lining the Squab House with
Nests—Use of Egg Crates—How to Put Up the Perches—Difference
Between the Nest Box, Nest Pan and Nest—How to Tell How
Many Pigeons Can Occupy a Certain Building—A Large Flock of
Pigeons is as Easily Cared for as a Small Flock—How to Use Your
Time to Best Advantage.
Do not get the idea that any special form of building is necessary to
raise squabs. We will tell you how to put up-a structure that will make
your work easier for you, and enable you to handle a big flock fast and
accurately, but pigeons will work in almost any place, if it is free from
rats, darkness and the musty dampness which goes with darkness. Any
builcing, whether a woodshed, a corn crib, a barn, an outhouse of any
description, or even a hog pen, can be made a successful home for
pigeons with a little work.
The points to remember are these, first, that the building be on fairly
level, sunny ground: second, that it be raised from the ground so that
rats cannot ‘breed under it out of sight and reach; third, that it ought to
be fairly tight, so as to keep out rain and excessive cold. Pigeons ought
to have sunlight aiid fresh air, ‘ike any other animal, and need protection
from the eiements.
In practice, therefore, most squab houses are found raised on posts a
foot or two feet off the ground; they face the south (here in New Eng-
land) because most of our bitter weather comes from the north and east.
If you live in a state, territory or foreign country where conditions are
different, adapt your squab louses to those conditions. In some localities,
the fierce weather comes from the South and West, in which case your
squab house should face the North or East.
Here in New England we build a tight house to withstand the cold
winters, but in the South the buildings are more open. Be guided by
what you see around you in the place where you live. If the houses used
by your friends and neighbors for hens and chickens are tight and warm,
make your squab house tight and warm. It would be foolish for you, for
example, if you live in Texas, to build a strong, tight, close squab house,
for in that latitude, in a hen house built tight and close, vermin would
swarm and harass the chicks, and they would harass the squabs just as
fast.
(13)
CuEarp Bur Pracricat Nest Boxes.
These are empty egg crates piled one atop another from floor to roof of Squab House.
Each egg crate is two feet long, one foot wide and one foot deep. The partition in the middle
makes two nest boxes, each one foot square. Into each of these nest boxes a wood fibre nest-
bowl is placed. The birds build their nests in these nest-bowls.
National Standard Squab Book. 15
Some of our customers write from places like Oregon and Idaho, where
there is a wet and a dry season, and are puzzled to know what to do. In
such cases we say, arrange your buildings as you see poultry houses ar-
ranged. The pigeons will do as well or better under the same conditions
as hens and chickens.
Suppose you have a vacant building or shack of any kind in which you
wish to raise squabs. We will take tor granted that it has either a flat
roof or a ridgepole with sloping roof, and that it is built in rectangular
form. Never mind what the dimensions are; our advice will apply to
either the large or the smail structure.
First raise it off the ground, or build a new floor off the ground, so that
rats cannot breed out of your sight in the darkness and get up into the
squab house. If there is an old fioor, patch up all the holes in it. Now
you need one door, to get yourself in and out of the squab house, and
you need at least one window through which the pigeons can fly from the
squab house into the flying pen and back from the flying pen into the
house. You will shut this window on ccsld nights, or on cold winter days.
You must cover the whole window with wire netting so that the birds
cannot break the panes of glass by flying against them. If you have no
wire netting over the window, some of the birds, when it is closed, will
not figure out for themseles that the glass stops their progress, ‘but will
bang against the panes at full speed, sometimes hurting their heads and
dazing them and at other times breaking the glass.
The flying pen which you will build on the window side of tne squab
house may be as small or as large as you have room. The idea of it is
not to give the birds an opportunity for long flight, but simply to get
them out into the open air and sunlight. They enjoy the sun very much
and it does them good and they court its direct rays all the time. Build
the flying pen, if you choose, up over the roof, so the birds may sun
themselves there. [If that side of the roof which faces the flying pen is
too steep for the pigeons to get a foothold, nail footholds along the roof,
same as carpenters use when they are shingling a roof, and the pigeons
will rest on these to sun themselves. For the flying pen you want the
ordinary poultry netting, either of one-inch or two-inch mesh. The two-
inch mesh is almost invariably used by squab raisers, because it is very
much cheaper than the one-inch mesh. The one-inch mesh is used only
by squab raisers who are afraid that small birds (the English sparrows
here in New England) will steal through the large meshes of the two-
inch netting and eat the grain which you ‘have bought for the pigeons.
You can buy this wire netting in rolls of any width from one foot up to
six feet. If your flying pen is 12 feet high, you should use rolls of the
six-foot wire. If it is ten feet high, rolls which are five feet wide are
what you want. If your flying pen is to be eight feet high, buy rolls
which are four feet wide. In joining one width of wire netting to its
neighbor, in constructing your flying pen, do not cut small pieces of tie
wire and tie them together, for that takes too much time and is a bungling
FHA FT
2 —
a eEniaay *
gee: —————laiglte
ys Ais =
“= ;
SSS 2
2 =a
sal >: SS LAL y| NE:
BF. S. — =|
S (S
lg i Tart
RECESS SHIT
Se KLE intl S
ras) Rel stl SS
NS
!'
tat
) TL
aa
4
ce ait S
Le eer w!
dios
re
iq an
é « poousaurs! os
AH Teg anis Aiapnagsaues pamist ead
How Crry Dwetiers witnour LAND May BreeEp SQua Bs.
National Standard Squab Book. 17
job, but buy a coil of No. 18 or 20 iron wire and weave this from one
selyage to another of your wire netting, in and out of the meshes, and
you have the best joint you can get, and a ship-shape job.
You can line the three walls of the interior of your squab house with
nests if you choose. The fourth wall is the one in which the window or
windows are. On this fourth wall you should not have nest boxes, but
perches. These perches, or roosts, should be tacked up about 15 inches
apart, so as to give the birds room without interfering with each other.
The advantage of the V-siaped roost which we advise is that a bird
perched on it cannot soil the bird underneath. Do not buy the patent
pigeon roosts which you see advertised, for a pigeon roosting on one will
soil the pigeon roosting on the one immediately below.
Please note particularly at this point the following terms which we use,
and do not become confused, ‘The nest box is something in which rests
the nappy or other nest pan in which the nest is built. Do not say or
think of nests when you mean nest boxes.
The nest boxes, when done, should iook like the pigeon holes of a desk,
and should be about one foot high, one foot wide and one foot deep. A
variation either way of an inch or two will not matter.
One way to get these pigeon holes is to build them of nice pine lumber,
in the form of ‘boxing one-half or five-eighths of an inch thick. Another
way is to use hemlock or spruce boards one inch thick. The third way
(which we think is the best for the beginner who wishes to start cheapest
and quickest) is to use egg crates, or orange boxes. These egg crates are
two feet long, one foot wide and one foot deep, but they are divided in the
middle by a partition, giving two spaces, each of a cubic foot, and this is
just what the squab raiser wants. They are procurable almost anywhere
in the United States and Canada brand new for ten or fifteen cents each,
and if you buy them after the egg shippers are through with them, you
ean get them for three to five cents apiece. Some grocers will be glad
to have you carry them away and will charge you nothing for them. The
crates are built of thin, tough wood and usually are neat and solid. Take
off the covers and throw the covers away, you do not need them. Then
put one egg crate on its side, open top out, and place another egg crate
on top of that, and so on until you have covered the three walls of your
squab house from the floor to the roof. Do not use any nails, they are
not necessary, the crates will keep in position by their weight. It is an
advantage, also, to have them loose, for when you clean the nests, you
can step up on a chair or box, take down the crates, commencing with
the top, and clean each one with your feet on the floor. If you build a
substantial set of nest boxes of boxing or hemlock lumber, you will have
to stand on a chair and strain your arms in order to clean the top nest
boxes, so you see their are points in the low-priced arrangement not pos-
sessed by the faney kind. It is on the same principle by which a humble
small boy with bent pin and worms and an old pole catches more fish than
the city angler with a $25 assortment of hooks, lines and artificia flies.
4
v ‘ Ny)
| I ) TA I, as V VMS ) \ LITA oS 10 | ? ION LI
N
XN Le N |
rb BN
BV)
patiins
EMI
any
LL
QRS
O sees »
Se
ru - area
Biter
ie
an
National Standard Squab Book. 19
It is the pigeons and the intelligence behind them which do the trick,
every time. A fancy pigeon house with fancy trimmings cannot produce
aby better squabs than the home-made affair, provided the birds are the
same in both cases.
You should have a pair of nest boxes for a pair of pigeons. By a pair
of pigeons we mean two pigeons, a male and a female. By a pair of nest
boxes we mean two nest boxes. We find that the word pair has a differ-
ent meaning to people in different parts of the country, perhaps on the
same principle that a pair of scissors or a pair of suspenders is one ob-
ject, while a pair of something else, as in this case, means two objects.
A pair of pigeons attend to a pair of squabs in one nest box, nevertheless
for each pair of pigeons you need two uest boxes, for when the squabs
are about two weeks old in one nest, the old birds will go to the adjoining
nest box, or to a nest box in a distant part of the squab house, and begin
housekeeping again, laying eggs and dividing their attention between the
two families.
Count your nest boxes and you will know how many pigeons your house
will accommodate. If your count shows 96 nest boxes (in other words,
48 pairs of nest boxes), you can accommodate 48 pairs of pigeons. Do
not write us and tell us that you have a house of a certain size and ask
us to tell you how many pairs of pigeons it will accommodate. Put in
your nest boxes as we have described and then count them, and you will
know. Or you may figure it out for yourself on paper, allowing two nest
boxes, each one cubic foot in size, for each pair of birds. To put it in
another way, you should allow one cubic foot of nest box space for each
breeding pigeon. Surely we have made this so plain now that you cannot
go astray.
Now suppose you work backwards, saying to yourself that you wish to
order 96 pairs of ‘breeders, and want to know how large a house you will
need to accommodate them. From what we have written in the foregoing
paragraph, you know that for each pair of pigeons you will need two
nest boxes each one cubic foot in size. Therefore for 96 pairs of pigeons
you will need 192 nest boxes, or 96 egg crates, or their equivalent in space.
Perhaps your start will be made with so small a number of birds that
you will not kaye to cover more than one wall of your squab house with
nest boxes. Cover one wall, or two walls, or three walls, whichever the
occasion demands. Have a lot of spare boxes, if you wish, and let the
breeding pairs choose where they will. An extra number of nest boxes
may be useful to you to accommodate the young birds raised to breeding
age from the old birds which you buy of us, if you intend to raise your
squabs to breeding age.
An expenditure of not over five dollars, and a couple of days’ time,
will transform the average old building into a habitation for squabs. Put
on the finishing touches and add to the expense to suit your fancy. You
may cover the outside of the building with tarred paper and shingle or
National Standard Squab Book. 23
clapboard it. You may put a skylight in the root to let in more sun. Im-
prove it all you wish. Use your own judgment.
To get at your pigeons in such a house, you walk in through the door
and find yourself directly among them, the nest boxes all pointing at you.
Go to the nest which you wish to investigate or from which you wish to
take out the squabs and put your hand i» the opening. The old birds will
fiy by your head, perhaps, and may strike you with their wings, but they
will not fly in your face and eyes, they are good dodgers. Don’t be afraid
that if you enter the house when the housekeeping is going on you will
frighten the birds so they never will come back to the eggs or the squabs.
They will seem timid at first, but they will get accustomed to you. In the
course of a few weeks, only a few will make a great hustle to get away
from you. Many of them will continue to sit contentedly on the eggs and
if you put up your hand to them they will not fly off in fear but will slap
you with their wings, telling you in their language not to bother them.
Carry some hempseed iu with you and you will teach the ‘birds to come
and eat it out of your hand. You can tame them and teach them to love
you as any animal is taught. The pigeon, particularly the Homer, the
king of them all, is a knowing bird.
Tack up perches where you have room on that wall or those walls of
the squab house which have no nest boxes. You do not need a perch for
every pigeon, because while some are on perches, others are in the nests,
or out in the flying pen, or on the roof, or on the floor of the squab house.
If you have 48 pigeons, 20 perches will be enough, and you can get along
with a dozen. Make each perch of two pieces of board, one six inches
square, the other six inches by five, and toe-nail the perch to the wall of
the squab honse as shown in the illustration. You cannot have one long
pole for a pigeon perch. If you had such a pole, and your pigeons were
perched on it, or some of them were, a bully cock would saunter down the
Hine and push off all the others.
In the centre of the squab house you place an empty crate or over-
turned box. The object of this is to break the force of the wind made
by the pigeons’ wings as they fly in and out of the squab house. Other-
wise the floor of the squab house would be swept clean ‘by the force of
the wind. It also forms a roosting place for the birds, and finally, it is a
convenient resting place for the straw, hay and grass out of which the
pigeons build their nests.
The floor of the squab house should be kept clean. We used to advise
that a layer of sawdust one inch thick ‘be kept on the floor of the squab
house, to absorb the droppings, but we have found a steady and profitable
demand for pigeon manure, and this manure is worth scraping up and
earefully saving, for its sale will pay from one-quarter to one-third of the
grain bill. Use a hoe to scrape the droppings from the floor, and pack
the manure away in barrels. Clean the floor about once in three weeks,
or oftener, depending on the size of your flock. Pigeon manure is in active
demand all the time by tanneries. We send the manure from our pigeons
National Standard Squab Book. 23
by freight without previous notice to the American Hide and Leather
Company at Lowell, Mass., and are paid for it at the rate of sixty cents
a bushel.
A peculiarity about pigeon manure is that it is not foul-smelling like
hen manure, and when it is mixed with water you get a kind of crude
soap. In washing the nappies, no soap is necessary. Use warm water in
washing them and the manure caked to them forms a cleansing soap in
conjunction with the water. If you have a basket in which you have
transported pigeons, and whose bottom is caked with the hard droppings,
jay the basket face down and sprinkle water liberally on the underside
and the manure will drep off in large pieces from the inside and the
basket will become perfectly clean.
In raising live stock of any kind, arrange matters so the animals will
look after themselves as much as possible. We all know that automatic
machinery has cheapened many articles formerly dear, and the perfect
breeding outfit is automatic, needing only a supply of feed and water.
Aim to cut down the factor of personal drudgery, so as to leave your
time ciear to observe and plan, and execute intelligently. Beginners who
load themselves down with a daily round of exacting duties soon lose
heart, their patience gives out and they become disgusted. We have
known breeders of rabbits to fail simply because they raised them in
hutches. Hach hutch had a door and two dishes, one for feed, the other
for water. Every day, the door of the hutch had to be opened, the hutch
cleaned, the dishes refilled (and often cleaned), and the door closed. It
took 15 or 20 motions to do this for each hutch. Multiply this by 20 to 30
(the number of the hutches), and the burden grew unbearable. It was not
surprising that in three or four months the breeder’s patience was worn
out. .The factor of persona! drudgery had become greater than the rab-
bits. The thoughtful breeder would have turned his rabbits into two or
three enclosures on the ground and let them shift for themselves. Then
one set of motions in feeding would have answered for all, and there
would have been no dirt to clean up. Infinite patience as well as skill is
required to make a success of animals given individual attention. The
aim of every breeder should be to make one minute of his time serve the
greatest possible number of animals. When you think and reason for
yourself, you understand how much more practical it is to give sixty ani-
mals one minute of your time than one animal one minute. Time is money
and if you are too particular, and too fussy, and thoughtless about these
details, it is a clear case of the chances being sixty to one against you.
At the start, the problem of breeding squabs for market is in your favor,
because one hundred pairs of breeding pigeons may be handied as easily
and as rapidly as one pair. Try to keep this numerical advantage in your
favor all the time. Discard every plan that euts down the efficiency of
your own labor, and adopt every device that will give you control in the
same time over a greater number of pigeons.
It takes brains and skilled labor to run a poultry plant successfully.
INTERIOR OF MULTIPLE Unit Howse.
This is one of our houses, The drinking fountains stand in the passageway and their fronts
project through the wire netting under the first row of nest boxes. The nest boxes are empty
egg crates and do not open at the back. The feed troughs are inside of each pen. In other
houses, we set the feed troughs alongside the drinkers in the alleyway and cut away the netting so
the birds can feed from them. We like the last arrangement best because the troughs can be filled
guicker from the passageway, and the time of opening and closing doors and going into pens is
saved.
National Standard Squab Book. 25
Every poultryman knows that he cannot entrust the regulation of tempera-
tures of incubators and brooders to an ignorant hired man, but even a boy
or girl, or under-the-average farm hand, knows enough to fill up the bath-
pans and feeding-troughs for squab-breeders, leaving the time of the
owner free for correspondence and the wore skilful work of killing and
shipping the squabs.
The primary object is to breed squabs for market as cheaply, as easily
and as fast as possible, without the expenditure of a dollar for fanciful
or impractical appurtenances.
Oo not think it is necessary to heat your squab house. A squab house
which has the cnill of dampness taken off it by hot water or steam pipes
will raise more squabs than a house not heated, but a flock of pigeons in a
small house throw off considerable heat from their bodies and will breed
in cold weather all right. After you have developed your plant and have
a large business which you wish to keep at the highest state of efficiency,
you may heat your squab house. The idea of heat in winter time is to
keep the birds more contented and get more squabs out of them, and
not at all to keep them alive. Do not be afraid that your pigeons will
freeze to death.
City people can keep pigeons in the garret of a house, or the loft of a
barn, without a foot of ground being needed. In such a case the flying
pen, or place to which the pigeons go for sun and air, can be built out
on a platform. ‘The illustration shows how to utilize a window leading
from a garret. If you think that rats will trouble you in either a garret
or barn loft, cover the floor inside, especially the corners, with fine wire
netting through which it will be impossible for the rats to gnaw from
below.
One of our customers in Illinois, a rich horse breeder having a barn
some 200 feet long, has turned the whole upper story into a loft for
pigeons. The flying pen takes in the whole back of the barn. There are
windows and no doors on this side of the barn, the horses using doors on
the other side, so this leaves the upper story of the barn, and its whole
back yard, free for the pigeons.
How WE Rie Our SHIPPING BASKETS FOR TWELVE PAIRS.
‘guvid diq @ uLoy 07 Joazt arom 10 QOS ‘ONS ‘OOL WONaQsUOD sIqy pue4xiT
‘aSHOH LINQ) WI1dIW1O]L
CHAPTER IIL.
THE UNIT HOUSE.
Best Possible Construction for a Squab Plant—The Wind Break Forma-
tion of Roof—Dimensions of the Unit—Multiplying the Unit to In-
crease the Capacity of Your Plant—A Passageway Behind the Nest
Boxes—Numbering the Hinged Backs of the Nest Boxes, and the
Management of a Card Index to Correspond—Cost of the Unit Con-
struction is from $3 to $5 a Running Foot—Working Drawings—The
Nappies.
If you have no building already standing which you can fix over for
pigeons, you may erect a simple reetangular structure and Jine it with
nests as we have described in the last chapter. We will tell you in this
chapter how to put up the finest kind of a pigeon structure. It is at the
same time the most expensive. It is the best, the most workmanlike. In
saying that it is expensive, we do not mean that money is thrown away
on its construction, for that is not so. It is a fit habitation for a money-
making investment.
This best method of construction results in what we eall the unit house.
You can multiply this unit as many times as you please and get as large
a house as you wish, or you may add a unit from time to time, just as
you add unit book cases to accommodates the growth of the modern library
shelves. You can erect these units separately, or attach one unit to the
other, so that you have one long building.
The nest boxes are ‘built of boxing and set in a vertical row at the back
of the house, forming a wal! between which and the north side of the
house is a three-foot passageway. You can buy this boxing at a saw mill
all eut, ten by eleven inches, the dimensions of the nest, and if you get it
in this shape you can put the boxes together with as much ease as a child
builds a doll’s house. You will have no doubts as to the squareness and
plumbness of the structure when you have it up. Take long lengths of
boxing eleven inches wide for the shelving which should form the top and
bottom of the nest boxes, then set the 10 in. x 11 in. pieces the proper
distance apart. The finished nest will be eleven inches from front to back,
ten inches from top to bottom, and about ten inches from one partition to
the other (or whatever distance the proper distribution of your nests in
pairs permits).
We have found five-eighths inch boxing to be the best suited. Build the
nest boxes up from floor to roof perfectly plain, just as the pigeon holes
of a desk run.
(27)
28 National Standard Squab Book,
The nest boxes should be perfectly plain, made of simple boxing in the
manner described. Do not build up a piece of boxing at the front part of
the nest to prevent the nappy from being pushed out. Early in our ex-
perience we built a few nests in this way, but soon changed them over to
the simpler form, on account of the difficulty of keeping them clean. The
droppings bank up at the front of such a nest box and it is almost impos-
sible to clean thoroughiy.
The dimensions of this unit squab house are as follows: Length, 16 feet;
width, 12 feet; length of flying pen from end of house to end of yard, 20
feet; distance from floor of squab house to ridgepole, 12 feet; two windows
in south wail of squab house, each 2 ft. 2 in. wide and 8 ft.10in. high. One
window in north wall of squab house, 2 ft. 2 in. wide and 3 ft. 10 in. high.
There is a passageway on the north side of the squab house three feet
wide, separating the north wall from the vertical row of nest boxes. The
door of the sauab house opens into this passageway so that you can enter
the house without being seen by the birds, and without disturbing them.
The backs of the nest boxes are on hinges, so that you may turn them
back and reach into the nests to take out the squabs when they are ready
for the market. If you wish, you may set up rows of nest boxes on the
east and west walls of the squab house and accommodate 50 more pairs.
You enannot have a passageway behind these nest boxes on the east and
west walls, but will approach them from the front by entering the interior
of the squab house through a wire door which leads from the passageway.
So, altogether, you can accommodate nearly 100 pairs of birds in such a
unit house. In order not to crowd, it is best to put in not more than 75
pairs.
Build the first unit so that you may extend it either to the east or west
(as your Jand lies) to increase your accommodations. Your squab house
wil! always remain 16 feet from north to south, but it may be either 12
feet from east to west, for one unit, or 24 feet for two units, or 36 feet for
three units, and so on. We think it is most practical to keep about 48
pairs of birds in one unit, 48 pairs in the next unit, and so on. Of course
you may build one long house 1€ feet wide and in length any multiple of
twelve, and keep all the birds you wish in it, but we do not advise such
an arrangement. You can keep track of your pairs better if you split a
big flock up into unit flocks.
The hinged backs of the nest boxes open into a pair of nest bo.ses. By
numbering the hinged backs, one number to a nest, you have a means of
record keeping which is unequaled. Provide a card index (the cards be-
ing blank and 3 by & inches in size) and number the ecards to correspond
with the nest boxes, and on these cards you may keep a record of what
the birds in the nest boxes do. These cards, which are perfectly blank
except for the numbers they bear, may be kept in a tray such as ali the
manufacturers of card indexes advertise in the back pages of the maga-
zines and you ean pick out any enrd you wish, or turn to it, at once. It
is much better than keeping a record in a book, for you cannot tear out
National Standard Squab Book. 29
the lezves of a book, as you can throw away a ecard, nor can you shift one
page from one lecation to another, as you can a eard in a tray.
The floor of the squab house rests on cedar posts and is two feet from
the ground. The floor is built of two thicknesses of board, with building
paper between. The walls of the squab house are built of boards which
are covered with building paper and shingled. The roof is shingled. You
may use clapboards on the sides, or common boards.
The cost of such a squab house, complete with flying pen and all inside
fittings, built in the hest possible manner, will be from $3 to $5 a running
foot. That is to say, a unit plant 12 feet long will cost from $36 to $06. A
plant consisting of three units, 36 feet long, will cost from $108 to $150.
We publish and sell for 25 cents complete working drawings showing just
how to build a unit complete in every detail. On the same sheet are full
working drawings for building a simple squab house (without passageway)
to cost from $15 to $25. Also on the same sheet we give data showing how
one of our friends built a squab house and pen capable of accommodating
920 pairs of breeders at a cost of $130. In ordering, simply say you wish
plans and specifications for squab houses.
In our early plans for the unit squab house, we provided for a building
with a “jog” in the roof, making a long, low slope for the south side of
the roof, and on this slepe the birds would sun themselves and make love.
This ‘jog’ construction is more expensive than is needed, and now we
have a better way. We have*an ordinary pitch roof, sloping equally from
the ridgepole to both north and south. We run the flying pen out on the
south side, not from the ridgepole, but from the eaves, and then out in the
flying pen we erect perches as shown in the picture. The fact that the
birds rest easily on these perches (as the photograph in the Appendix
shows) is proof that they are contented and pleased by such an arrange-
ment. We have found, too, that they can hear the squeaks of their young
for food betier than if they were up on the roof, and better attention to
the squabs is the result.
Please note particularly that if you erect one long building which will
be a multiple of units, you separate these units, both inside and ontside
of the squab house, not by board partitions, but by wire partitions. For
instance, if you have a building one hundred feet long, ten units, you will
separate the units by nine wire partitions, these partitions being erected
both inside and outside the house,
a
—_
——
oe _ — ——
—— =—————————!
== Ove Pe tts)
—— ———4
——EESS—
—— SS ——<—— SS :
Poa ee eo =: yr pan CEVETITUL IML ALCL ie aS
er
Zi
Be =—
———
———
\
ATID CEN ATT TETT T i T t Pee Nee seeeceness oo Ts Gil PETTITT TIT Lisi ttc itiit tii * EL yss
Fy ui
\ =S=—— SS
Poo Si unaseiiasire risa deWULnaT==> 4 2 Fe ho guoccsnccelleUTeca tDQULUTLUSTSTI@UERERBURARIEL
|
|
|
== ||| |
ai!
a |
——S— |
INTERIOR OF SQUAB House{Snowine Prrcues.
CHAPTER IV.
THE NAPPIES AND NESTS.
Do Not Use the Old-Fashioned Nest Pans—The Six-Inch and Seven-Inch
Nappies of Earthenware—Obvious Faults of the Earthenware Nappy—
A Perfect Device Found in the Wood Fibre Nest-Bowl, Which the
Birds “Take to’”—How the Pigeons Choose Nest Boxes.
For nest pans, do not use the heavy, deep, red clay, unglazed dishes
which you may see offered for sale as pigeon nests. They are a relic of the
past.
In our early experience we used for a pigeon nest-bowl the common
kitchen yellow earthenware nappy. We employed two sizes, the six-inch
and the seven-ineh, changing from the large one to the small one when the
squabs were two weeks old. These earthenware nappies filled the bill in
being cheap and shallow, and the pigeons deposited their manure in a
circle outside and not inside the nest, but they have faults which are ob-
vious. They are flat and not rounding on the bottom and when the female
pigeon turns the eggs (as she does daily, same as a hen, in order to give
the heat of her body to the whole shell) the eggs are liable to roll apart,
making it necessary for the bird to gather them together again, and after
two or three mishaps like this she is liable to desert them. The earthen-
ware is cold, breakable and can be kept clean only with water. The wash-
ing of the nappies becomes a tedious task and is often: neglected.
Later we perfected a nest-bowl made of wood which met every objection
raised against the earthenware. We sold thousands of them during the
two years we had them on the market and they gave good satisfaction ex-
cept when some were made of improperly-seasoned lumber, in which case
they would crack and split after a few months’ use. After study and ex-
periment to remove this objection, we had expensive patterns and moulds
made and began the manufacture of these bowls out of wood fibre. Their
success was quickly demonstrated and now we sell nothing else. These
wood-fibre nest-bowl]s have all the advantages of the wood bowls and at the
same time are practically indestructible, cannot warp or split. The wood
fibre of which they are made is thick and exceedingly tough, being solidified
under many tons’ pressure. After making they are treated with an odor-
less, anti-moisture compound and then baked to flint-like hardness. We
sell these wood fibre nest-bowls in one size only, nine inches in diameter.
Price, eight cents each, 96 cents per dozen, $11.52 per gross. Prompt ship-
ment from Boston same day order is received, in any quantity. No order
(31)
OxLp STYLE PIGEON Nest. WaTeER Disn. LarGeE Nappy. Smartt Nappy.
Do not use either the old style pigeon nest or open water dish.
Tut Woopn-Fispre NeEst-Bowt.
This is made in one size (nine inches diameter of bowl). To give stability, the bowl may be
fastened to a base by one screw. The first picture shows the perspective view ; the second picture
shows one-half cut away. This is the most practical nest-pan for squab raising and is having an
enormous sale. The bowl may be screwed directly to the bottom of the nest-box. (See opposite
page.)
BATH Pawn AND DRINKER. Hann BaAskevr.
One bath pan to every 12 pairs of birds is necessary. The hand basket (price $3.50) is used
in large plants to carry the squabs from the nests to the killing place. The squabs should not be
killed in sight of the parent birds.
National Standard Squab Book. 39
filed for less than one dozen. We have the exclusive manufacture and sale
of these goods and they cannot be obtained elsewhere.
The advantages of this nest-pan are these: (1) The eggs roll to the centre
and are always close together under the birds. (2) It is warmer than
earthenware and eggs are not chilled. (3) It is cleaned without water by
means of a trowel, and may then be whitewashed, if desired. (4) The
claws of the old birds and squabs do not sprawl, and no cases of deformed
legs in the squabs are found. (5) It is unbreakable. (6) When shipped
either short or long distances, no packing is necessary, they are lighter and
the freight bill is smaller. (7) And finally the birds ‘take’ to them more
readily than to earthenware, getting to work quicker and producing more
squabs.
We make this wood-fibre nest-bowl in only one size as above specified and
illustrated (two sizes are not necessary because the feet of the squabs do
not sprawl as in the case of the earthenware nappies). You will need one
pair of nappies for every pair of pigeons (in other words, one nappy to
every pigeon). If you order 24 pairs of breeders you will need 48 nappies.
If you order 96 pairs of breeders you will need 192 nappies.
We know our birds will breed more successfully in these nest-bowls than
in earthenware, and to make it an object for you to buy them, you may
deduct the freight charges on nest-bowls from your order for birds. First
order your nest-bowls sent by freight, then when you order your breeders,
send us your freight receipt and count the amount as cash. Or you may
order your birds at the same time you do the nest-bowls (and other sup-
plies) and when you get your freight receipt send it to us.
Place one nest-bowl] in each one of your nest-boxes. Let the pairs choose
to sait themselves. At the end of the month, when you take out the squabs,
take out the nest-bowl, clean it and put it back.
It is seldom that our customers
build the nest boxes with hinged
backs. The solid backs are much
more desirable. Many customers
who do not use egg-crates or orange
boxes, but build their nest-boxes of
half-inch or five-eighthslumber, have
written us that they used the con-
struction which we illustrate here-
with, and which is good, because
cleaning can be better done. The
bottoms of the nest-boxes are re-
movable and rest on cleats, as the
picture shows. The cleats are sev-
en-eighths or one inch square and
are nailed to the uprights. When this construction is employed, it is not
necessary that you have a block or base screwed to our wood fibre nest
34 National Standard Squab Book.
bowl. ‘The nest-bowl may be serewed directly onto this removable bottom.
If you use egg-crates or solid-built nest-boxes, you will have to give the
wood fibre nest-bow] stability by screwing it to a base of wood seven inches
squere and about three-quarters of an inch thick.
When the squab house is ready for the birds, each of the nest-boxes has
one of these nest-bowls. The pigeons build their own nests in them, taking
the nesting material and flying to the nest-bow] with it. The average nest
has from one to two inches of straw compactly and prettily laid by the
birds. Some birds use more nesting material than others. After the
squabs are hatched, they quickly show that Nature never intended them
to have a dirty nest. When they wish to make manure, they back up to
the edge of the nest and ‘‘shoot’ outward and over the edge of the nest-
bow] into the nest-box, which is just where the breeder wants to find it.
In a week or two there will be a circle of solid manure in the nest-box, but
it is out of the nest, and off and away from the feet of the squabs. As the
squabs grow older, their claws tread and throw out the straw on which
they were hatched, and the nest-bowl gets bare again as it was in the first
place. The small amount of manure which then sticks to it is removed
with a trowel.
The use of this wood fibre nest-bowl] has lightened the work a great deal
for they never have to be washed. We do not whitewash ours. The work
of whitewashing takes time, and we have not found it essential.
The pigeons will not take with mathematical regularity pair by pair the
nest-boxes which you have provided. Some of them will take them in
pairs, one adjoining the other. This makes it very convenient for you in
keeping track of them. Others will take one nest-box in one part of the
squab house but go to another part of the squab house for their second
nest. Some will not take a nest-box at all, but will build a rough nest on
the floor of the squab house and rear their family there. Let them choose
for themselves.
The nests are built by the birds of hay, straw and grass. The birds fly
to the pile, select what wisps they want, then fly to the nest-boxes and ar-
range the wisps in a nappy to suit themselves. Tobacco stems are recom-
mended for nesting material, because the odor from them will have a tend-
ency to drive away lice, but they are not necessary if the nappies are used
and ordinary cleanliness observed.
The best thing to keep the nesting material in is a berry crate. Fill it
with straw and hay (use the fine oat, not rye straw, cut into six inch
lengths) and shut down the cover. Then when the birds want nesting ma-
terial they will fly to the vertical openings in the sides of the berry crates,
stick their bills in and make their selection. The cover of the berry erate
prevents the birds from soiling the nesting material. They will not build
nests with dirty nesting material. It must be first-class, clean, dry and
sweet or they will not use it.
CHAPTER V.
WATER AND FEED.
Necessity of Pure Water and Plenty of It—The Kind of Drinking Dish
to Use and the Kind Not to Use—Management of the Drinking
Tountain and Bath Pan—The Feed Trough and Self Feeder—Feeding
Habits—What Grains to Use—How to Mix Red Wheat and Cracked
Corn—Use of Grit, Oyster Shell and Salt—How to Feed the Dainties
—Keep Feed Before Your Flock All the Time.
Fure water and plenty of it is a great blessing for pigeons. It is the
custom of pigeons to get right into water, wherever it is. When they
cannot bathe in it, they will stick their dirty feet into it. When they
cannot get in their feet, they will douse their heads. They are after
water, water all the time. When feeding the squabs, the old bird will
fill up its crop with grain, then fly to the water and take a drink, then
return and dole out to the squabs the watery and milky mixture on which
they fatten. Therefore you should study the water problem and make
preparations to give the birds plenty of it, both bathing and drinking
water. :
The source of drinking water should be separate from the bath pan.
They will drink from the bath pan, to be sure, while the water remains
comparatively clean, but after a few have bathed in it it is unfit for any
bird to drink, and inside of twenty minutes the pan is not only covered
with a whitish, greasy scum, but is dyed greenish from the dung which
has washed off their feet.
There should be drinking water inside the squab house, provided you
have not a running stream or some such clean water device in the flying
pen.
The kind of water dish you do not want in the squab house is the
kind with the open top, into which the birds can wade, and which they can
foul with their droppings. The best device which we have found is the
so-called self-feeding poultry fountain, such as we illustrate. This fountain
is made either of crockery or tin or galvanized iron. Tin or galvanized
iron is better than crockery, because if water freezes in such a dish, the
dish will not be cracked. We ealeulate to use the crockery dishes in
houses where it is never cold enough to freeze. It will be seen by exam-
ination of the self-drinker that it is impossible for the pigeons to foul the
water. The reservoir holds quite a supply of water, which feeds down
as fast as it is drunk by the pigeons. We have seen beginners puzzled
by these self-drinking dishes; they cannot imagine why the water does
(35)
36 National Standard Squab Book.
not all run out at once by the bottom hole. It is a simple principle in
hydraulics which you may demonstrate to your own satsfaction by filling
an ordinary tumbler with water aad then inverting it in a saucer of
water. There is no way for tke air to get to the inside of the tumbler
except by passing under the rim at the points where it touches the saucer,
consequently it does not flow dewn unless the water is removed from the
saucer, and then it ceases as soon as the water in the saucer rises over
the rim of the tumbler again. In fact, some self-drinkers for poultry are
made of two pieces of pottery exactly on the principle of the tumbler and
saucer. These fountains are not so practical as the fountain which we
illustrate, because a pigeon can roost on the top of it and foul the saucer
with its droppings. In the fountain which we picture it is impossible for
droppings to reach the mouth centaining the water, even if the pigeon
is perched directly on top of the fountain. The barrel shape of the foun-
tain makes it hard for more than one pigeon to perch at the same time on
its top, but one pigeon usually is found there. He gets up there, for the
special purpose, it seems, of fouling the water, but the fountain beats
him and he can’t do it. Neither can he put his feet in the water unless
he is an extraordinary gymnast capable of holding ‘his body out at an
angle to the perpendicular. The result is, that in actual practice the
water keeps clean, and there is a supply of it ready about all the time.
A fountain of a gallon capacity will keep two or three dozen pairs of
breeders supplied all day. The fountain is filled by turning it on end and
pouring water down into the opening. If you fill the fountain at the same
time you fill the bath pan in the morning, you will have done your duty
by ‘the pigeons for the day.
There are several patterns of self drinkers but the principle of all is
the same and you should select a pattern something like that we have de-
scribed and which appears to you to be best protected from soilings.
These fountains are for sale by every poultry supply store in every trad-
iug centre.
The best place for the bath pan is out in the yard of the flying pen.
A pan 15 inches in diameter is right for a flock up to 24 pairs of birds
und it will do for a large fiock if you renew the water. The pan should
be from four to six inches deep, not over six inches, for a pigeon will not
bathe in water where it wouid be likely to drown if pushed or sat on by
its mates. Having the bath pan in position on the ground of the flying
pen, you take to it once each day, in the morning, a ‘bucket of water, and
pour the water into the pan. Then you can go away to business, if you
wish. The pigeons will fly to the pan from the interior of the house, or
from the roof, wherever they happen to be. Some will splash right in.
Others will perch on the rim and drink before they bathe. When the
water gets dirty, they kuow enough not to drink, unless they are very
sorely pressed indeed for water. The water does get quite dirty from the
bathing. A thick, greasy, white scum forms. The pigeons do not rustle
in the dirt, as a hen does, but rely on the water to keep them clean and
National Standard Squab Book. 37
dainty. They fiap their wings in the water and enjoy it thoroughly. A
pigapn will never run away from water, as you will discover if when you
are watering your lawn you turn the hose on them. A summer shower
will find them perched on the roof where they can get it. In the winter
time, if ice forms in the bath pan, they will break it and bathe.
Let the dirty water stand in the bath pan all day if you choose, or you
may go to it an hour or two after you have filled the pan, and empty the
water. One bath a day is enough.
If there is a stream of water running through your property handy to
your squab house, build your flying pen out over it and you need never
trouble with bath pans or drinking water. If it is a deep stream, you will
have to contrive a shallow bath tub at the shore, or divert part of the
stream into a shaliow run. The squab raiser with a stream of water
handy should by all means make use of it and save himself the work of
carrying water in pails.
The bath pan may rest in a basin, if you choose, and the overflow
caused by the splashing of the wings may be conducted to a sewer and
drained away. You may conduct water in pipes and have a faucet open-
ing out over the bath pan, which faucet you may control either directly,
or from a central station. An easy home-made arrangement to be used in
conjunction with the bath pan consists of a wet sink in which the bath
pan sits, and out of which the splashed water runs. In the winter it may
be advisable to give your pigeons their bath in the squab house instead
of in the yard of the flying pen, in which case you should have some
device on the wet sink principle to prevent the floor of the squab house
from getting damp.
Feed may be given to pigeons in a less guarded way, for they do not
soil the feed dish so freely as they do the drinking dishes. You may put
the feed in open dishes in the squab house. If you observe them when
eating, you will notice that they stand up to the feed dish in a somewhat
orderly manner and peck at its contents. They do not sit in the dish and
roll around in the feed as they do in the water. But they have one fault
when eating from an open dish and that is, to scatter the grains. They
will push in their bills and toss them around in a search after tidbits, and
seatter out on the floor kernel after kernel, and it will make your bump
of economy ache to see this grain scattered around. There do not seem
to be any neat, saving pigeous which go to the floor in the wake of their
prodigal brethren and eat the crumbs. They all have a fancy to the first
table and they get right at it and scatter the grain like the rest of their
fellows, and apparently the nigeon who scatters the most grain is the one
which struts around with the biggest front. The way to fool them is to
provide in the squab house a covered trough, that is, covered except at the
slit or points where ‘they stick in their bills for food. With a little in-
genuity you can cover ap ordinary v-shaped trough so that it will be
hard for the pigeons to waste the grain. You may have a self-feeder made
38 National Standard Squab Book.
as big or as small as you choose and in which the grain will drop down as
it is eaten.
We illustrate one form of self-feeder with which we have had experi-
ence. It is a kind that rests on a post in a flying pen. We do not recom-
mend this, however, for general use. We have had many customers who
built it and tried it on our recommendation write back to us that the pig-
eons did not seem to like it. It depends on the flock a good deal. Some flocks
take to it naturally on the principle of following the leader, but the aver-
age flock of pigeons fight shy of it. Its construction is quite a trouble, often
necessitating the calling in of a carpenter. And one cannot be built short
of an expense of $3 to $5. Altogether it is not one of the essentials, and ex-
pericnce has taught us that it is best to recommend only the fundamental
devices. If you wish to build one, however, go ahead. We show the per-
spective view as well as the pian, elevation and cross section. If you
have a self feeder, either in the squab house or outside on a ‘post, as pic-
tured, you may go away for a few days and have a sure feeling that your
pigeons will not starve while you are away.
We will try to present the matter of feed as clearly and fully as it seems
to us te be possible. A woman in Santa Cruz, California, said she would
like to raise squabs, and would begin by ordering her feed of us, exactly
as we recommended, ‘to be sent to her by freight from Boston via the
Southern Pacific. .A man in Cleveland ordered a quantity of red wheat
and eracked corn to be sent by freight from us, when there were thou-
sands of bushels of both staples in elevators in ‘his city, in fact most of
the Boston supply had passed through his city. We did not like to run
the chance of losing the order for breeding stock either of the woman in
Santa Cruz or of the gentleman in Cleveland, but we wrote to both that
they ought not to go into the squab raising business if they were to be de-
pendent on us for grain, that it was too far to send and that if they
would look around home they could get what they wanted.
Here in New England we feed to pigeons red wheat, cracked corn,
nemp-seed, Canada peas, kaffir corn and buckwheat. Sometimes whole
corn is used, but this is a poor food for a flock of breeders, for if the big
kernels get into the crops of the squabs it will choke anc plug them up
with a case of indigestion.
All the time people write to us and say they never heard of red wheat.
More write and say they don’t know what kaffir corn is. Others are puz-
zled by hempseed, they have never seen any. That is surprising to us
here in New England, but no doubt we would be just as surprised if we
were in our customers’ places.
Let us see if we cannot level up the whole country on this question of
feed for pigeons. As a rule, we say, feed the grain which is nearest you.
This country has its corn belt, its wheat belt, its section where millet is
raised. Buckwheat is plentiful in another section. For your leading
grain, your staple, select that grain which you can get cheapest and
easiest. The point to remember is to feed a variety of grains. Keep this
National Standard Squab Book. 39
word variety in your mind all the time in dealing with your pigeons.
Their appetites do not grow keen on a monotonous diet and their health
will not be good on it. Vary the diet.
In order to find out what grains are convenient to you, go to your near-
est grain dealer or country general store. The dealer in nine cases out of
ten knows nothing about pigeons and their feed and if you give him the
name of a strange grain, he will be liable to shy and say he never heard
of it. The trouble with him is that he sells horse feed and is accustomed
to handling only the grains which horses need. He can get the grains you
wish by writing to his nearest port or railroad junction. There is nothing
odd or out of the way about the grains. They are going from one point
to another all the time. Sometimes they are scarce at certain periods of
the year. For instance, all this summer there has been no kaffir corn at
a reasonable price obtainable in Boston, so we have not fed it to our
pigeons, but have cut it out altogether in favor of the grains scliing at a
lower price. Most of the kathr corn which we get in Boston comes from
KKansas. It is a splendid feed for pigeons. It is small and comparatively
soft, and their crops make easy work of it. It is nourishing and they like
it. Maybe your grain man seils a mixture for pigeons. If you will look
in this mixture you will find probably kaffir corn, as well as buckwheat
(in black kernels), also red wheat and Canada peas. Do not feed Canada
peas in great abundance to a house full of squab ‘breeders. We have fed
a bountifu: supply of Canada peas to birds and later on found the crops
of some of the squabs distended with a great mass .of something which on
examination was found to be whole Canada peas. The parent birds had
simply filled their own crops with the whole peas, then taken a drink of
water and gone directly to the young squabs and allowed them to cram
their crops full. Squabs are killed by these whole grains which the old
birds do not take time to properly break up. If you wish to feed Canada
peas in good measure, pound them up with a mortar and ‘pestle into finer
form and you will be on the safe side.
For the same reason, we sumetimes take cracked corn and pound it even
finer than it is when we buy it.
Do not feed an excess of corn, particularly in the summer time. (By
corn, we mean common Indian corn, not kaflir corn. Kaffir corn is harm-
Jess, even when forced on the birds.) The effect of corn is to heat the
blood. This is what you want in the winter time, but not in the summer.
If fed to excess in the summer time, it will cause canker in the old birds,
which is a sort of diphtheria, filling their throats with a thick, cheesy-like
compound, and the throats of some squabs also get filled up in the same
manner. By an excess of corn, we mean that corn forms the major part
of the diet. In the summer, feed two parts of red wheat to one part of
cracked corn. In the winter feed two parts of cracked corn to one part
of red wheat. In other words, set before the pigeons in the summer
twice as much red wheat as cracked corn, in the winter time twice as
much cracked corn as red wheat.
National Standard Squab Book. 41
White wheat fed to pigeons here in New England causes scours or
diarrhoea, but we have customers in the West who write us that they are
feeding white wheat with no bad effects. Use red wheat and you are ab-
solutely sure that your pigeons will not have diarrhoea.
All the grains which you feed should be old, hard, dry and sweet. If
they smell sour or taste bad to your own tongue, don’t feed them to your
pigeons. Above all, keep your grain dry. If you have the grain stored in
bins which are damp from ground water, or which catch the drippings
from the eaves, or through holes in the roof, first you will get sour grain
and then some of the grain wiil spreut, and this sprouted grain will de-
range the bowels of your birds and bring on dysentery. Do not let rank
little growths spring up in a dirty squab house or in the yard of your
flying pen. Pigeons will peck at green leaves and grass and will not be
harmed, but do not give them a chance to peck up sprouted grain and eat
the sprout, grain and ail, for if they do they will have diarrhoea. A
pigeon in good condition and busy with a nest ordinarily will not touch a
nasty little green sprout, but in the moulting season, when pigeons are in
the dumps generally, and feeling like having a stimulant, they will experi-
ment with these sprouts. Keep the floor of yeur squab house clean and
the yard of the flying pen raked up and you need not worry about this
matter.
Ground oyster shell should be placed in a box handy for the pigeons to
get at. The purpose of this oyster shell is to provide the constituents of
the eggshell. The female pigeon needs it in order to form the egg.
Grit is needed by the pigeons to enable them to redvece to powder the
feed which they take into their crops. The muscles of the crop work
the grit on the grains and reduce the grains so that they mix with the di-
gestive fluids. There are special grits on the market advertised and for
sale at reasonable prices, but if there is a gravel bank near you, or a
deposit of fine sand, you do not need to buy grit. Simply cart two or
three bushels of the fine gravel or sand into your flying pen and cover the
ground with it. It is not necessary to cover the whole space of the ground
of the flying pen with grit. Some breeders use pounded glass.
It is poor policy to mix anything but red wheat and cracked corn to-
gether. Ii you make a mixture of peas and hempseed with cracked corn
and red wheat, you will fiad that the pigeons will dig down after the peas
and hempseed and toss the other grain around and waste it. The only
mixture, therefore, which we feed is a mixture of red wheat and cracked
corn. According to the advice we have given, we take a grain scoop or
any measure, and in the summer time mix two parts of red wheat to one
of cracked corn; in the winter, two parts of cracked corn to one of red
wheat.
We call the red wheat and cracked corn staples, because with us in
New England it forms the major part of the diet, and is the cheapest.
The hemp seed, buckwheat, Canada peas, kaffir corn and millet we call
dainties. We do not feed much millet, because we have the other grains,
42 National Standard Squab Book.
which are cheapest, but some of our customers in the millet sections of
the country feed a good deal of millet. In such cases they look on millet
as one of their staples, and the hard-to-get grains are classed by them as
dainties. The staple grains of which you will feed the most to your
pigeons are the ones which are cheapest for you. The more expensive
grains will be ciassed by you as dainties.
A good way to feed the dainties is to throw them out on the floor of
the squab house by hand. You will see the pigeons make a rush for
them and eat them with as much relish as a child eats candy. You should
feed the duinties about three times a week, throwing handfuls on the floor
until you see that the pigeons are satisfied and do not care for any more.
Do not threw any feed on the ground of the flying pen, for the earth is
liable to be damp, and this dampness will sour the grain, especially cracked
corn, and if the pigeons eat it, they will get sour crops, and the fluids
from the sour crops of the parent pigeons will make the squabs sick and
perhaps kill them. Do al! your feeding in the squab house (supplemented,
if you wish, by the protected self feeder out in the flying pen) and your
pigeons will not have sour crops.
Do not lay in a big stock of cracked corn at a time, for cracked corn
exposed to sudden changes of the weather is liable to take up dampness,
and sour. Smell and taste it ouce a week or so and determine to your
own satisfaction that it is not sour.
Some squab breeders feed twice a day, as much as the birds will eat up
clean, but we do not believe in that system of feeding. Our own success,
and the suecess of our customers in squab raising, is based largely on
the fact that we insist on a continuous supply of food for the pigeons.
Focd should be at hand for them all the time. They do not gorge, as a
horse will if an unlimited supply of food is set before him. They are not
gluttons, and never get fat avd pot-bellied. They always know when to
stop eating, and never waste food by eating grain that they do not want.
They do not lose their racy shape. A squab when hungry will squeak
loudly to inform its parents of that fact and if you observe a squab house
where the two meals a day are in vogue, you will note quite a chorus of
squeaks. In a house where there is feed always at hand, you will not
hear many hungry squeaks. It is greatly to your interest that the crops of
your young birds be filled with food. The more their crops are stuffed
with food, the quicker they will fatten and the fatter they will get. The
parent birds shoulc at ai) times be able to fill up their crops with feed
and water and then fiy to the nest to disgorge for the benefit of the
squabs. ;
Some small parent Homers are such good feeders, such good fathers and
mothers, that they stuff their squabs with grain and bring them up to a
surprising fatness. You cannot predict that the squabs from small par-
ents will be small, for this element of stuffing the feed into the young ones
is worth taking account of. We have had pairs of squabs which actually
at four weeks of age were bigger than their parents. This is not surpris-
National Standard Squab Book. 43
ing when you think that the squabs sit in their nest hour after hour doing
nothing but accumulate fat, and taking no exercise to train off this fat.
The old birds are ilying around and do not have much fat on them; they
are trim and muscuiar, and hard fleshed. You can tell an old pigeon after
it is cooked when you put your teeth into it, just as you can tell an old
fow]l.
To close this chapter, we will leave one thought with you which you
must not forget, and that is, to provide salt for your pigeons. All animals
need salt in order to keep strong and healthy. The safest kind of salt
for you to use is rock salt, such as is sold for horses. Put a couple of big
lumps of it in the squab house and let the pigeons peck at it when they
wish. About once in two weeks wet the grain with salted water, then dry
the grain and let the pigeons eat it and they will get it into their systems
in this manner. Do not use powdered salt for if you do the birds may
eat too much of it and it will kill them. Coarse ground salt may be used,
but the rock salt is best.
ome ts RE Rey hiss
SeuaB House Buitt or LOGs.
THe MatTInG Coop.
One way of mating squab breeders is to turn cocks and hens in equal number into the same
pen. The mating coop is used when the breeder wishes to pair a certain male with a certain
female. The above mating coop is divided by a partition. The cock is placed on one side of
the partition, the hen on the other, as pictured. They are left thus for a day or two to tease
each other. Then raise the partition, or take it out, and allow them to approach each other
when they usually will be found to have formed an attachment. This being the case, they
may be put into the large pen with the other birds, where they will find a nest box and go to
housekeeping. If they fight when the partition is removed, try again, or try other mates. The
coop pictured above is two feet long, one foot wide and one foot deep.
CHAPTER VI.
LAYING AND HATCHING.
Laying an Egg is Under the Control of the Pigeon’s Mind—Fertile and
Unfertiie Eggs—How the Cock Drives the Hen—One Day Between
Hggs—Hatch After Seventeen Days—How Squabs are Fed by the
Parent Birds—Mating Males and Females—Use of the Mating Coop
—Determinaticn of Sex—Color of Feathers Has No Effect oa Color
of Flesh—Pigeons Left to Themselves Will Not Inbreed—No In-
breeding Necessary Even if You Start With a Small Flock.
The hen pigeon builds the nest. When the nest is ‘built, the cock begins
to “drive’ the hen around the house and pen. In a flock of pigeons on
the roof of the squab house, you always will see one or two cocks ‘“‘driy-
ing’ their mates, pecking at them and nagging them with the purpose of
forcing them onto the nest to lay the eggs. The cock seems to take more
interest in the coming family than the hen.
The hen lays one egg in the nest, then skips a day and lays the second
egg on the third day. Seventeen days after being laid the eggs hatch.
The egg first laid hatches a day before the second, sometimes, but usually
the parents de not sit close on first egg, but stand over it, and do not in-
cubate it. Sometimes one squab may get more than its share of food, and
the younger one will weaken and die. This seldom happens but if you
see one squab considerably larger than the other, the thing to do is to ex-
change with a syuab from another nest that is nearer the size of the re-
maiaing squab. ‘The old birds will not notice the change but will continue
feeding the foster squab.
The process of laying an egg 1s a mental operation. We mean by this
that it is not a process which goes en regularly in spite of all conditions.
The hen forms the egg in her body and lays it when she wants to, not
when she is forced to. In other words, the hen lays when conditions are
satisfactory to her. That she forms the egg at will is proven by many
things, principaliy by the fact that she allows one day to come in between
the first and the second eggs. No doubt, after she has laid the first egg,
she hurries the other along and lays it as soon after the first as she can,
auc it takes 48 hours for the egg, complete in its wonderful construction,
to form. Hen pigeons in a shipping crate or ‘close coop do not lay eggs,
beeause they know that there are no facilities there for raising young.
Once in a while you will find an egg in a shipping crate when the birds
are taken out, but it is a comparatively rare occurrence.
Of course, in order to lay a fertile egg, the hen pigeon must have re-
(45)
46 National Standard Squab Book.
ceived the attention of the cock bird. It is common for a hen pigeon at
five months, and sometimes four, to lay an egg, but as a rule those first
eggs from a young hen are not fertile because she has not yet mated with
the cock bird. After a hen pigeon has reached six months of age, and is
paired with a male, it is safe to assume as an almost invariable rule that
the eggs she lays will be fertile. When the male bird gets to be six to ten
years old, he may lose his vitality, and the eggs laid by his mate will not
be fertile. Then it is necessary to provide the female with a new mate.
The breeders we sell are of »rime breeding age, from eight months to
eighteeu. months old, and the eggs laid by hens of that age will be fertile,
and of full size, and the squabs ‘bred from them will not be scrawny and
lacking in Vitality.
From tie day of its hatching to market time the squab is fed by its
parents. The first food is a liquid secreted in the crop of both cock and
hen, and called pigeons’ milk. The parent pigeons open their bills and the
squabs thrust their bills within to get sustenance. This supply of pigeons’
miik lasts from five to six days. It gradually grows thicker and in a week
is found to be mixed with corn and wheat in small particles. When about
ten days old, ihe squabs are eating hard grain from the crops of the ma-
ture cock and hen, which fill up at the trough, then take a drink of water
and fly to the nest to minister to the little ones. You see how important
it is to have food available at all times.
In 14, 15 or 16 days after the first pair of squabs have been hatched, the
cock begins “driving’ the hen again. This shows the necessity of a
second nest for the pair. In this second nest the hen lays two more eggs,
and the care of the first pair of squabs, now between two and three weeks
old, devolves upon the cock. When this pair is four weeks old, it is taken
out of the nest anc killed and both the mature birds are concerned then
only with the new hatch. This sequence of eggs and hatches goes on all
the time.
If there are not two nests, the two new eggs will be laid in the nest
where are the growing squabs and the parents in their eagerness to sit on
the new eggs will push the squabs ovt of the nest and they will die for
lack of sustenance.
The hen iays the eggs about four o’clock i: the afternoon. The cock and
hen take turns at covering the eggs, the hen sitting during the night until
about ten o’clock in the morning, when the cock relieves her, remaining on
until the latter part of the afternoon.
When the nappies are changed-at the end of two weeks, the nest-box
should be scraped clean with a trowel. When the squabs are taken out
for market at the end of four weeks, the nappy should be washed and
scalded and the nest-box whitewashed. If the nappies are changed and
the whitewash used regularly, no trouble from parasites will result. In
the suminer it is well to add a little carbolic acid to the whitewash as an
extra precaution. Sprinkle unslaked lime on the floor of the squab house
and in the nest boxes.
National Standard Squab Book. 447
One way of mating pigeons is to turn males and females in equal
number into the same pen. ‘They will seek their own mates and settle
down to steady reproduction. Another method is to place the male and
female which you wish to pair in a mating coop or hutch. In the course
of a few days they will mate and then you may turn them loose in the big
pen with the others. The latter method is necessary when improving your
Hock by the addition of new bleod, or when keeping a positive record of
the ancestry of each pair. By studying your matings, you may improve
the efficiency of ycur lock. If you are raising squabs for breeders, you
should use the mating coop constantly so as not to inbreed, which the
young pigeons might do if left the chance.
In case a pigeon loses its mate by death or accident, the sex of the dead
one must be ascertained and a live pigeon of the same sex introduced to
the pen to mate with the odd one. Or the live one should be removed from
the pen and placed in the mating coop with a pigeon of the opposite sex.
The mating coop should have a partition of lattice work or wire. Place
the cock in one side, the hen in the other, and leave them thus for two or
three days to flirt and tease each other, then remove the central lattice
work or wire and they usually will mate. If they show no disposition to
mate but on the contrary fight, replace the partition and try them for two.
or three days longer. If they refuse to mate after two or three thorough
trials, do not experiment any more with them, but select other mates.
The determination of the sex of pigeons is difficult. The bones at the
vont of a female are as a rule wider apart than of a male If you hold the
beak of a pigeon in one hand and the feet in the other, stretching them
out, the male bird usually will hug his tail close to its body—the female
will throw her tail. The best way to determine the sex is to watch the
birds. The male is move lively than the female, and does more cooing, and
in flirting with her usually turns around several times, while the female
seldom turns more than half way around. The male may be seen pecking:
at the female and driving her to nest. When one pigeon is seen chasing
another inside and outside the squab house, the driven one is the female
and the driver her mate.
Neither the squab-breeder nor the flying-Homer breeder is much con-
cerned about the color of feathers. There are blue checkers, red checkers,
black checkers, silver, blue, brown, red, in fact ‘about all the colors of the
rainbow. Color has no relation to the ability of a pair to breed a large
pair of squabs. We wish specially to emphasize the fact that the color
of the feathers has no influence on the color of the skin of the squab. A
white-feathered bird does not mean a whiter-skinned squab. ‘The feed
affects the color of the meat a little. A corn-fed pigeon will be yollower
than one fed on a mixture. Squabs with dark skins (almost black in
come cases) are the product of blood matings. The trouble with a dark-
colored squab is in the blood and the only remedy is to get rid of them
either by killing the parents or by remating. Usually the trouble comes.
from one parent bird, which you can find by turning up the feathers and.
OnE WEEK OLD.
So rapidly do squabs grow that you will quickly
notice their increase in size from day to day.
Two WerEks OLD.
THREE WEEKS OLD.
Four WeEExKs O Lp.
National Standard Squab Book. 49
examining the skin. Having found the bird which is at fault, kill it. This
point has come up continually in our correspondence. The erroneous be-
lief that white-feathered birds produce the whitest-skinned squabs seems
to be widespread and we are asked sometimes for a flock of breeders “all
white.’ Our experience with all white Homers is that they have less
stamina than the colored ones. (This is also the experience of poultrymen
with ali white fowls; they are not hardy.) The marketmen will take two
or three pairs of dark-skinned squabs in «a bunch without comment, but
an excess of dark ones will provoke a cut in price. Breeders who are ship-
ping only the undressed squabs should pluck feathers now and then to
see just what color of squabs they are getting. The dark-colored squabs
are just as good eating as the light-colored ones, but buyers for the hotels
and clubs, and those who visit the stalls generally, pick out the plump
white-skinned squabs in preference to the plump dark-skinned ones. As
a rule, squaks from Homer pigeons are white-skinned—the dark-colored
squab is an exception.
Many beginners wish to know if it will be all right for them to ‘buy a
flock and keep it in one house for six months or a year, paying no atten-
tion to the mating of the young birds, but leaving that to themselves, so
as to get without much trouble a large flock before the killing of the
squabs for market ‘begins. Certainly, you may do this, providing extra
nest-boxes from time to time until your squab house has been filled with
nests; then you will have to provide overflow quarters. We are asked if
the Hock will not become weakened by inbreeding, that is, a brother bird
mating up to a sister, by chance. According to the law of chances, such
matings would take place not very often. Pigeons in a wild state, on the
face of a cliff, or in an abandoned building, would mate by natural selec-
tiou. The stronger bird gets the object of its affection, the weaker one is
killed off or gets a weaker mate, whese young are shorter-lived, so the in-
evitable result is more strength and larger size. Nature works slowly, if
surely.