PIGEONS THAT HAVE FREE RANGE 269 



Cocks with mates will even temporarily mate up with the young 

 females in order to decoy them away and then forsake them 

 after they succeed in getting them to leave you. 



If you have provided your young cocks with places to build 

 they will more than likely mate up with the young females 

 before they are attracted by strange males. Often it is a good 

 plan to catch the young females when they reach mating age 

 and shut them up with odd cocks until they mate up and then 

 turn them out. 



ROOSTING PLACES FOR YOUNG PIGEONS THAT 

 FLY OUT 



The young birds that are to be kept for breeders must be 

 provided with a place to roost by the time the old birds wean 

 them as they will fight them away from the place where they 

 were hatched and raised, forcing them to roost out in the weather 

 for a while and then probably leave home. A roosting place 

 must be so arranged that birds cannot use it for a place to build 

 their nests or it will soon be occupied for that purpose and the 

 young birds coming on will be without a roosting place. 



The best way to provide a suitable roosting place is to nail 

 up square blocks for perches along in a row horizontally about 

 a foot apart against the side of a wall, then five inches above 

 same nail a 1x6 board slanting out and down and just above 

 that another row of blocks for perches and five inches over the 

 blocks place another 1x6 board until you have provided enough 

 roosts to take care of your young birds. 



The object of having the perches small and a foot apart is to 

 keep the birds from fighting and thus prevent the more aggres- 

 sive ones from fighting away the younger or more weak ones. 

 The slanting board above each row of perches will keep the 

 birds on the upper rows from fouling those on the row of 

 perches under them. 



In a southern climate the roosting perches can be put on the 

 outside of a building, up under the eaves of a barn is a good 

 place, but in a cold climate it is advisable to put them up on an 

 inside wall or to pai'tly box tliem in so tbe birds will have j)ro- 

 tection from the cold. It is necessary, however, to place the 



