41 MANAGEMENT. 



know the difference in their ajppearance, and will occasion- 

 ally either not feed them or drive them out of their nest. 

 Some feeders are very valuable, from the care they bestow 

 on any young ones given them, and a pair, of which the 

 hen is barren, are often best of all in this respect. An egg 

 placed in her nest will be taken to ; after the interval of a 

 day it may be removed, and a fresh pair of eggs from 

 some choice pair of birds given to her, when she and her 

 mate will treat them as their own, and rear them success- 

 fully in many instances. Barren hens have this advantage, 

 that they can be made to wait till their owner has a 

 use for them. The worst of feeders is, that they look so 

 bad among good pigeons, and on this account they should 

 always be kept in some separate loft if possible. A jplace 

 for drafting young ones into is also a great convenience, 

 for they soon become troublesome among breeding birds. 



Over Laying. 



Unless other eggs or young ones be given to pigeons who 

 have been deprived of their own, they will often lay again 

 much sooner than they would otherwise do, and when this is 

 often repeated nothing but disaster can result. Such un- 

 naturally forced eggs are often thin- shelled, unfertile, or, if 

 they contain birds, they very often come to nothing. Rather 

 than allow good hens to over lay themselves, if they cannot 

 be supplied with substitutes in eggs or young ones, they 

 should be penned up for a time, which will give their systems 

 the needful rest. 



Sex of Young Pigeons. 



The usual pair of eggs laid by the hen pigeon generally 

 result in a cock and hen, but so many instances occur of two 

 cocks or two hens being produced in a nest that it is never 

 safe to reckon on the sex of young ones. Certain indications 

 of the sex of his young pigeons will soon present themselves 



