POULTRY 



675 



stormy weather opens into the flying 

 pen. The whole building should be white- 

 washed inside twice yearly and the nest 

 boxes cleaned and disinfected once every 

 two or three months, as a protection from 

 lice. Straw should be left in the house 

 for the use of the birds in building their 

 nests. A bath pan about 20 inches in 

 diameter and 4 or 5 inches deep should 

 be kept in the far end of the flying pen 

 and be filled with fresh water daily. In 

 addition, water jugs or other drinking 

 vessels should be provided, since the 

 bathing water soon becomes filthy. Clean 

 sand should be kept on the floor of the 

 house all the time and small boxes pro- 

 vided, in one of which coarse salt is kept 

 all the time, in another ground oyster 

 shells and in a third ground charcoal. 

 The feeding trough is made about 4 

 feet long, 10 inches wide and IV2 inches 

 deep, and should be under cover, to pro- 

 tect the feed from rain and consequent 

 souring, mold, etc. 



Hatching and feeding 



The male bird mates with but one 

 female. The female lays but two eggs 

 at a batch. These are incubated in 16 

 to 18 days, the male and female tak- 

 ing turns in sitting on the nest. For 

 the first five or six days after hatching 

 the squabs are fed by the parent birds 

 with a kind of milk called pigeon milk, 

 prepared in the crop of each bird. 

 Gradually, harder grain is given to the 

 birds until at the end of 10 days the 

 squabs receive only hard grain. 



It is thus seen that no work is re- 

 quired on the part of the grower in feed- 

 ing squabs, as they remain in the nests 

 until ready for market, being fed during 

 this time entirely by the parent birds. 

 Should one of the squabs not get his 

 share of the feed and not make satis- 

 factory growth, it should be given to 

 another pair of birds having only one 

 squab, or may be fed by hand with 

 soaked bread or grain. 



Feeding breeding birds — The usual 

 feeds for the breeding birds are cracked 

 corn and wheat, supplemented by an oc- 

 casional feeding of Canada peas, millet 

 kafir corn and hemp. 



One noted squab grower uses wheat 

 one part and corn two parts in the win- 

 ter, and in the summer corn one part 

 and wheat two parts. W. E. Eice, writ- 

 ing on this subject, recommends equal 

 parts cracked corn, wheat and peas, giv- 

 ing about 6 pints of this mixture to a 



pen of 50 birds in the morning, while 

 in the afternoon a ration composed of 

 cracked corn, kafir corn, millet and peas 

 in equal parts is fed. 



It is desirable to have feed before the 

 birds all the time, but if any large quan- 

 tity is left over after each feed, the 

 amount of the ration should be reduced. 

 With a large number of squabs in the 

 nest, the birds will feed more freely, 

 but will never gorge themselves or over- 

 feed. 



About twice a week hemp may be used 

 in the ration instead of millet. This 



Fig. 430 — WHITE DUCHESS PIGEON 



feed apparently exercises a medicinal 

 effect on the pigeons, keeping them in 

 good health, but if fed in excessive 

 quantities, it appears to have a ten- 

 dency to give the birds vertigo. Cau- 

 tion must be used in feeding millet for 

 a like reason. It is advisable to sift 

 the cracked corn, as the birds cannot 

 pick up the fine meal, and in damp, 

 muggy weather it frequently sours in 

 the trough over night and requires extra 

 trouble to clean it out. Only clean, 

 wholesome grains should be used. Both 

 new wheat and corn should be thorough- 

 ly dried before feeding to pigeons. 



