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AMERICAN SQUAB CULTURE 



When both front walls are wire the light conies in below the 

 chute and the birds can naturally see right through the wire 

 into the fly pen. The exit chute being high up and not so easy to 

 see, I questioned the birds finding them very easy, but the 

 second day they were all out in the fly pens and all readily 

 found their way back to the nest rooms. By this experience I 

 learned that the aisle in front and the overhead chute will work 

 as well with an open front house as a closed one. 



The California and southern breeders have developed a good 

 idea in fly pen running boards. They build them on either side 

 which is far better than the old ladder-like arrangement that is 

 so commonlv used in the east and central states. The differ- 



FLY PEN AND SQUAB HOUSE READY FOR THE BIRDS 



ence in these two systems of fly pen perches is all in favor of 

 the southern idea. The objection to the ladder plan is that it is 

 hard to catch birds in a fly pen with one of these constructions 

 in it. If the birds light on the top round it cannot be reached, 

 or if they get back of the ladder on the ground they are hard to 

 get to. 



I w^as once visiting a squab plant and the owner had asked 

 me to make any suggestion that I saw fit, and in reply to my 

 suggestion that I liked the single lunning boards along the 

 sides better than the kind he had as it made it easier to catch 

 birds, he asked "Why should a person be catching his birds 

 so much?" In less than three minutes he was in his fly pen 

 trying to catch a bird to remove a tight band and was chasing 

 it all over the pen and scaring all the other birds. 



