56 NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK 



dealer in nine cases out of ten knows nothing about pigeons 

 and their feed and if you give him the name of a strange grain, 

 he will be liable to shy and say he never heard of it. The 

 trouble with him is that he sells horse feed and is accustomed 

 to handling only the grains which horses need. He can get 

 the grains you wish by writing to his nearest port or railroad 

 junction. There is nothing odd or out of the way about the 

 grains. They are going from one point to another all the 

 time. Sometimes they are scarce at certain periods of the 

 year. For instance, nearly every fall there is no kaffir corn 

 at a reasonable price obtainable in Boston, so we do not feed 

 it to our pigeons then, but cut it out altogether in favor of 

 the grains selling at a lower price. Most of the kafSr corn 

 which we get in Boston comes from Kansas. It is a splendid 

 feed for pigeons. It is small and comparatively soft, and their 

 crops make easy work of it. It is nourishing and they like 

 it. Maybe your grain man sells a mixture for pigeons. If 

 you will look in this mixture you will find probably kaffir 

 corn, as well as buckwheat (in black kernels), also red wheat 

 and Canada peas. 



A liberal supply of Canada peas and hemp-seed is necessary 

 for a good -egg production. 



Do not feed a great excess of corn, in the summer 

 time. (By corn, we mean common Indian com, not kaffir 

 corn. Kaffir corn is harmless, even when forced on the 

 birds.) The effect of corn is to heat the blood. This is what 

 you want in the winter time, but not in the summer. 



Red wheat is better than white wheat to feed to pigeons 

 because it is not so likely to cause diarrhoea. (See supple- 

 ment of this book.) 



Beware of feeding too much wheat. Pigeons fed on an 

 excess of wheat are constantly out of condition with continual 

 diarrhoea and will lay no eggs while in that state. We recall 

 vividly cases of pigeons doing poorly caused by the owner's 

 stupidity in feeding too much wheat. One customer in 

 Kansas fed nothing but wheat and got his birds so weak that 

 they could not fly off the ground. Another in California with 

 a flock of over one hundred pairs had not been able in six 

 months' time to get more than one quarter of his birds at work. 

 He complained bitterly that his birds were " not mated," 

 were all cocks, and so on, but after further correspondence 



