_ ELMERCRICE. _ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. RIceE. ELMER C THE National Standard squab Book. A PRACTICAL MANUAL GIVING COMPLETE AND PRECISE DIRECTIONS FOR THE INSTALLATION AND MANAGEMENT OF A SUCCESSFUL SQUAB PLANT. HOW TO MAKE A PIGEON AND SQUAB BUSINESS PAY. DETAILS OF BUILDING, BUYING, HABITS OF BIRDS, MATING, WATER- ING, FEEDING, KILLING, COOLING, MARKETING, SHIPPING, CURING AILMENTS, ETC. BY BEMER Co RICE. Illustrated with New Sketches, and Half Tone Plates from Photographs Specially Made for this Work. BOSTON, MASS, 1906. ry CopyRIGHT, CopyRigHT, CopyRIGHrT, CopyRicHrT, Copyrient, LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received MAK 27 1906 Copyright Entry CLASS CoPY B. 10,) 0 QA X Ce 0: o 5 1902, By Eimer C. Rice. 1903, By Extmer C. RIcE. 1904, By Eimer C. RIcE. 1905, By Evmer C. RIcE. 1906, By Extmer C. Rice. All rights reserved. A WELL-BuiLT Nest. 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 are 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 well 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 some 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 industry. It has surprised a great many people 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. ELMER C. RICE. Boston, August, 1902. POSTSCRIPT. 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 work 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. Hy Caen: Boston, August, 1903. Squabs Pay ee An Easy Start . : The Unit House F The Nappies and Nests . Water and Feed : R Laying and Hatching : Increase of Flock Killing and Cooling . The Markets Pigeons’ Ailments Getting Ahead Questions and Answers Contents. CHAPTER I, CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III, CHAPTER IV, CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX, CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. PAGE. 27 31 35 45 53 57 61 64 66 72 THOROUGHBREDS. Waational Standard Squab Book. CHAPTER I. SQUABS PAY. Experience of a Customer who Started in January, 1902, Erected a Plaut Worth $3,000 and Made Money Almost from the Start—Settlements of Squab Breeders in Towa, California, New Jersey and Pennsy]- 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- ginner asks. We take the case of a man 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 ¢alls 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 long without being able to pass out the birds. In other words, they were going into squabs for all they were worth. They had not done any advertising, and had not sold 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 s*y that you can do it too, no 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. Iurlong, from a little town in lowa. 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 to 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. BE. H. Grice, who lives in the northern part of 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 and 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. II that territory in June, 1902, noting the buildings and methods of the squab raisers there and finding out from them if they were satisfied with the tinalcial returns. All were enthusiastic and said it was easy work, that squabs beat bens 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 1,000 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 world 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 ability and shrewdness. The naturally care- less, improvident person, who is generally in debt, should not start squab raising. It is a sensible industry for sensible people. ‘SNOGDIG YOd GAXIY AG AVL GUVA MOVG V MOP oI eapeenean eee ee etisotes SaKS exe ARK ‘ ; 'SERKGOG, ON: S state eT MMe Oe Oe CHAPTER II. AN EASY START. No Special Form of Building) Necessary—Points to Remember—Shelter Adapted to the Climate—How to 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 ~ aecurately, but pigeons will work in almost any place, if it is free from rats, darkness and the musty dampness which goes with darkness. Any building, 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 jevel, 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 and fresh air, like any other animal, and need protection from the elements. 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 houses 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 Hast. 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 Practicat 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 nappy is placed. The birds build their nests in these wood nappies. National Standard Squab Book. 5 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 for 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 small 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 floor, 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 cold 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 g = = ( ss "4 \ \- EE] C) IK \ \ \ H SY) INTE = > <\4 \) aN = OO SS E .) ‘F) | ta as TACK OATH HOSEN 1B A 5 HEN VE !) rr} xy I How City Dwe.titers Witrnout Lanp May BreEED SQuABS. National Standard Squab Book. iy job, but buy a coil of No. 18 or 20 iron wire and weave this from one selvage 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-shaped 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 look 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 cubie 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 erates 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 fi 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 fancy 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 artificial flies. o ‘NOq ONIATY GNV (AVM@DVSSVG HIIM) aAsnOR HVG0G LIN app BS Cy, HN Nee PLANS a) Neg PN “ny t aoe NOILIDIS Tf 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 any 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 nest 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 erder 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 have 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 roof 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 in 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 ean 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 house 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 line 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 serape 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 lie” ‘an at ee i i ; | | i Nest Boxes Bvui_t or LUMBER. This shows the front of the nest boxes as they face the interior of the squab house. They are from ten to twelve inches square, and the same distance deep. A slight variation does not matter. The fronts of the nest boxes are perfectly plain, as shown. It is not necessary to nail up pieces of board to keep the nappies and squabs from faliing out. They will not fall out. The backs of the nest boxes may be on hinges, and be approached from a passageway, as shown in the picture on page 20. Or the backs may be solid, in which case you will get at the nests by going into the interior of the squab house. National Standard Squab Book. 23 by freight to tanneries in Lowell, Lynn, Peabody and Danvers, 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 Jaard droppings, lay the basket face down and sprinkle water liberally on the underside and the manure will drop 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 clear 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 mouths the breeder’s patience was worn out. The factor of personal 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 jis 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 tian 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 handled as easily and as rapidly as one pair. Try to keep this numerical advantage in your favor all the time. Discard every plan that cuts 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 aie 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 quicker 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 more 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 Ric Our SuHipPinc BASKETS FOR TWELVE PAIRS. - ‘queld 31q © m0; 04 4a0J aIOMI 10 NOE ‘00% ‘NOL BOMONAASUOD sIqA pusyxq ‘ASOOPT LINQ ATAILIOW uel hy =“ “tak wat Pes hac Bs Ce en oes epee mie, Veer ona. ee ee 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 rectangular 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 qnd 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 saparately, 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 cut, 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 deseribed. Do not build up a piece of boxing at the front part of the nest to prevent tlhe nappy from being pushed out. TFEarly 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 thoroughly. 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 3ft.10in. high. One window in north wall of squab house, 2 ft. 2 in. wide and 8 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 squab 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 eannot 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 land lies) to increase your accommodations. Your squab house will 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 boxes. 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 83 by 5 inches in size) and number the cards to correspond with the nest boxes, and on these eards you may keep a record of what the birds in the nest boxes do. These ecards, 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 card 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 leaves 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 ecard 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 eost of such a squab house, complete with flying pen and all inside fittings, built im 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 $60. 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 frieuds built a squab house and pen capable of accommodating 220 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 slope the birds would sun themselves and make love. This “jog” construction is more expensive than is needed, and now we haye 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 outside 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. amr ———— ans a a ie - Sy SMM tm Tarvrecateniusaateel \\) nil — Se F SquaB Housk, SHOWING PERCHES, INTERIOR O 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-inch, 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-bowls 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) id Ty T? rT Oup STYLE Pigeon Nest. WATER DisH. LAarGE Nappy. SMALL Nappy. Do not use either the old style pigeon nest or open water dish. THE Woop-Fispre Nerst-Bow. 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.) Batu PAN AND DRINKER Hanp BASKET One bath pan to every 24 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. 33 filled for less than one dozen. We have the exclusive manufacture and sale df 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 suit 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- ry 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-bow] may be screwed 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 squ*°re 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-bowl 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- bowl 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 m 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-bow] 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 erate. 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 crate 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 aud the Kind Not to Use—}lanagement of the Drinking lountain 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 —IlKeep 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 eannot 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. be 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 ¢rockery, because if water freezes in such a dish, the dish will not be cracked. We ecaleulate 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 veservoir holds quite a supply of water, which feeds down as fast as it is drunk hy 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 and then inverting it in a saucer of water. There is no way for the air to get to the inside of the tumbler except by passing under the rim at the points where it touches the saucer, cousequently it does not flow down unless the water is removed from the saucer, and then it ceases as soon as the water in the saucer rises over the 1im 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 containing 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 de 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. Ifyou 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- seribed and which appears to you to be best protected from soilings. These fountains are for sale by every poultry supply store in every trad- ing 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 and 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 would 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. 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