160 AMERICAN SQUAB CULTURE 



give them some young squabs to feed after they have set on their 

 eggs about a week, taking the eggs aw^ay from them. The 

 squabs will necessarily have to be old enough to be fed grain, 

 as the parent birds will have no pigeon milk in their crops 

 at this stage of setting. Care should be taken if squabs are put 

 in such pigeons' nests to see that they are fed and that the old 

 birds do not fight them, as is explained elsewhere. 



Naturally, if birds abandon their eggs on account of lice or 

 mites, the proper remedy should be applied to rid them of same, 

 and if the nests arc too foul they should be cleaned. Young 

 pairs of birds will often abandon their eggs before hatching the 

 first time, but later will stick to the nest until the eggs are 

 hatched. Some males will not do their turn on the nests to- 

 wards the last of the incubation, preferring to put in their 

 time flirting with other females, and this as a rule will cause 

 the female on the nest to desert her eggs. Some females will 

 give up setting in order to get out with their mate. The remedy 

 for this is separation and re-mating with different birds. 



SQUABS THAT LEAVE THE NEST TOO SOON 



The principal cause of squabs leaving the nest before time, 

 is lack of feed or water, too hot or too stuffy nests, being neg- 

 lected by their parents or because the nests are so near the 

 floor that they can easily get out to meet their parent birds when 

 they come to feed and water them. 



This is one of the objectionable features of allowing birds 

 to nest on or near the floor. After a squab gets the habit of 

 running around on the floor, it is hard to get it to stay in a nest 

 and generally such squabs will become poor and stunted. About 

 the best way to remedy this condition is to transfer squabs from 

 nest on the floor to other nests before they get very old. 



Some old birds will persist in building on the floor. When 

 they do, their eggs should be taken away from them a couple of 

 times and the pair changed to another nest room. As a rule only 

 poor squabs leave the nest too early and the longer they are out 

 the poorer and more scrubby they get. Sometimes such squabs 

 can be induced to stay in a high nest, but if not a couple of slats 

 tacked across the front of the nest box will prevent them from 

 climbing out, yet permit the old birds to feed the young through 

 the spaces between the slats. 



