LAYING AND HATCHING 65 



the second eggs. No doubt, after she has laid the first egg, 

 she hurries the other along and lays it as soon after the first 

 as she can, and it takes forty-eight hours for the egg, complete 

 in its wonderful construction, to form. Hen pigeons in a ship- 

 ping crate or close coop do not lay eggs, because they know 

 that there are no facilities there for raising young. Once in 

 a while you will find an egg in a shipping crate when the 

 birds are taken out, but it is a comparatively rare occurrence. 



Of course, in order to lay a fertile egg, the hen pigeon 

 must have received the attention of the cock bird. It is 

 common for a hen pigeon at five months, and sometimes 

 four, to lay an egg, but as a rule those first eggs from a young 

 hen are not fertile because she has not yet mated with the 

 cock bird. After a hen pigeon has reached six months of age, 

 and is paired with a male, it is safe to assume as an almost 

 invariable rule that the eggs she lays will be fertile. When 

 the male bird gets to be six to ten years old, he may lose his 

 vitality, and the eggs laid by his mate will not be fertile. 

 Then it is necessary to provide the female with a new mate. 

 The breeders we sell are of prime breeding age, from eight 

 months to eighteen months old, and the eggs laid by hens 

 of that age will be fertile and of full size, and the squabs 

 bred from them will not be scrawny and lacking in vitality. 



From the day of its hatching to market time the squab 

 is fed by its parents. The first food is a liquid secreted in 

 the crop of both cock and hen, and called pigeons' milk. 

 The parent pigeons open their bills and the squabs thrust 

 their bills within to get sustenance. This supply of pigeons' 

 milk lasts from five to six days. It gradually grows thicker 

 and in a week is found to be mixed with corn and wheat in small 

 particles. When about ten days old, the squabs are eating 

 hard grain from the crops of the mature cock and hen. They 

 fill up at the trough, then take a drink of water and fly to 

 the nest to minister to the little ones. You see how im- 

 portant it is to have food available at all times. 



In fourteen, fifteen or sixteen days after the first pair of 

 squabs have been hatched, the cock begins " driving " the 

 hen again. This shows the necessity of a second nest for the 

 pair. In this second nest the hen lays two more eggs, and 

 the care of the first pair of squabs, now between two and three 

 weeks old, devolves upon the cock. When this pair is four 



