CHAPTER XL 



GETTING AHEAD. 



Make your Birds Pay for themselves as they Go Along, 

 unless you Wish to Wait Patiently until a Small Flock 

 Increases to a Large One Better to Take the Money Made 

 from Sale of Squabs and Buy More Adult Birds than to 

 Raise the Squabs, Because it is a Long Jump from Four 

 Weeks (the Killing Age) to Six Months, at which Age the 

 Birds Begin Breeding Shipping Points. 



It is the birds and not the buildings which count in squab 

 raising and if you have fifty dollars to start, put thirty -five 

 dollars or forty dollars into your birds and the balance into 

 your building. We have had customers start with a hundred- 

 dollar building and put a ten-dollar lot of birds into it, con- 

 tinuing to buy ten-dollar lots of us about once a month until 

 they had their flock to a good size, but we believe it is best to 

 let the buildings follow the birds, and not the birds the 

 buildings. In other words, let your birds earn buildings as 

 they go along. It is quite a drag on a small flock to weigh it 

 down with an expensive building much too large for it. 



Put this down in your mind solid, where you will not forget 

 it: Make your pigeons pay for themselves as they go. 



We sell to a great many poultrymen, and we like to get their 

 orders, for they have been through the mill of raising feathered 

 animals and are practical, and they are quick to see the money 

 in squabs, and when their order for breeding stock comes 

 along, it is in nine cases out of ten a large order, even if they 

 have had no previous experience. They know that in order 

 to sell squabs they have got to have birds enough to breed 

 squabs and it is just as easy for them to spend fifty dollars or 

 one hundred dollars at the start as it is for them to spend ten 

 dollars or fifteen dollars and use up one hundred dollars' worth 

 of time while waiting a year to begin selling squabs. 



Many beginners are so skeptical that they do not believe 

 squabs grow to market size in one month, or they have no 

 confidence in their ability to feed the mature birds so as to 

 keep them alive. They wish to make a start with a few pairs 



93 



