SUPPLEMENT 



115 



need the crumbs of parental food which 

 they get as described, and for which they 

 cry, or squeak. These crumbs have been 

 moistened by the parent bird and conse- 

 quently digest quicker and better. 



When the youngsters are weaned, take 

 them out of the breeding pen and put 

 them in the rearing pen. You can tell 

 by their looks when they are old enough 

 to remove, even if you have not kept 

 track of their age. The substance at the 

 base of the bill of an old pigeon which 

 is white will be a dark brown on a squab 

 or young bird. A squab in the nest is 

 so fat as often to be bigger than either of 

 his parents, but after he has got out of 

 the nest and hustled around on the floor 

 he trains off that fat and becomes thin 

 and rangy and can generally be told from 

 an old bird, if in no other way, because he 

 is smaller. 



A poor beginner will sometimes be heard 

 to say: "Many of my young birds are 

 dying." When he says that, you may be 

 sure that the trouble, every time, is with 

 him, and not with his birds, provided, of 

 course, his parent stock is rugged and 

 handsome. It may be deduced, without 

 askir\g any further questions, that he is 

 taking his young birds away from the 

 breeding pen before they have the strength 

 to support themselves. The precarious 

 period of all animal life is the weaning 

 age. Some beginners who have had no 

 difficulty in raising squabs to market age 

 have had losses because they supposed 

 that a full-fledged youngster was able to 

 take care of itself, but we never knew a 

 case of this which we could not straighten 

 out simply by recommending the breeder 

 to keep his young birds longer in the 

 breeding pen. 



NEED OP HEALTH GRIT. It lias 

 been our experience in dealing not only 

 with many thousands of beginners in the 

 squab business, but also with a great 

 many breeders of considerable experience, 

 that comparatively few have a proper ap- 

 preciation of the value of grit. Pigeons 

 have no teeth and must have grit to take 

 the place of teeth, otherwise they cannot 

 prepare their food for their stomachs prop- 

 erly, and will not do well. We have had 

 customers take the most extraordinary 

 care with regard to the grain, but supply 

 absolutely no grit, and then they com- 

 plained because their birds were not 

 breeding properly, and that the squabs 

 were not plump. 



Grit is not oyster shell, nor is oyster 

 shell grit. You must have both. The grit 

 is needed, as stated, to grind the grain, 

 while the oyster shell is needed to supply 

 the constituents out of which the female 

 pip-eon forms the egg. 



The yard of the flying pen must be 

 gravelled, not grassed, and out of this 

 gravel the birds g-et considerable grit. If 

 you watch them, you will see them peck- 

 ing at this gravel In the flying 1 pen con- 

 stantly. Beach sand, or sand of any kind, 



may be used in the flying pen instead of 

 gravel. The flying pen yard should be re- 

 newed with fresh sand or gravel every six 

 weeks, for although it may look the same 

 to you, you must remember that it does 

 not look the same to the birds, for they 

 have bean going over it constantly picking 

 out the particles which they liked. In the 

 winter time when the flying pen may be 

 covered with snow, it is well to keep a 

 protected box filled with gravel or sand in 

 the squab-house. By a protected box, we 

 mean a box which the birds cannot foul, 

 but which allows the- grit to fall down as 

 fast as eaten. 



In a protected box in the squab-house 

 there should also be fed the Health Grit 

 A-hich we sell. We have used all kinds of 

 ?rits, and the grit we are now using and 

 selling to the exclusion of everything else, 

 is the only grit which pigeons will eat 

 greedily (thus showing that it is good for 

 them). It contains salt, and no salt need 

 be provided in lump fc rm if this grit is 

 supplied. The grits commonly manufac- 

 tured and sold for poultry, made out of 

 granite, etc., are useless for pigeons, and 

 it is a waste of money to buy them, for 

 common gravel or sand would be fully as 

 good, and cost nothing. 



A flock of pigeons under any conditions 

 and in any part of the country will do 

 better when our Health Grit is fed. The 

 squabs will be ready for market a few 

 days earlier, they will be plumper, and 

 both they and the old birds will be in 

 rugged health, and will keep so. We keep 

 this grit before our own pigeons con- 

 stantly, and consume and sell more tons 

 of it every year than of any grit in the 

 market. It is used by practically every 

 large squab breeder of our acquaintance. 

 We recommend it in the highest terms, 

 knowing in our own experience that it 

 pays for itself many times over. 



We charge two dollars per 100 pounds 

 for this grit. We do not sell less than 

 fifty pounds. Price of fifty pounds, one 

 dollar. We ship it in bags and it goes at 

 a low freight rate. A 100-lb. bag will last 

 a small flock for months. It is as good 

 for hens as for pigeons. This grit should 

 be kept in and fed from a wood box. Do 

 not put it in a tin or galvanized iron box. 



OYSTER SHELL. A great deal of oyster 

 shell on the market is unfit for pigeons, 

 not being ground fine enough. It is qu'te 

 difficult in some sections of the west and 

 south to get oyster shell, which has to be 

 transported from the seaboard. The ovstor 

 shell which we supply our trade is put up 

 in one-hundred pound baers. Pn'ce 75 

 cents per 100 pounds. No ordr filled for 

 less than fifty pounds; price of fifty pounds, 

 forty cents. It is ground fine and is just 

 right for pigeons. It should be fed to the 

 birds from a protected box in the squab- 

 house. 



INSECT SPRAYER. Pigeons have a 

 long- feather louse which is not harmful. 



