DISEASE AND FEEDING 99 



Egyptian corn is the next safe and staple 

 pigeon grain for all the year round, but is more 

 expensive. Through the summer months I fed 

 it twice daily, one day with Canadian peas and 

 next day with red wheat. In the winter I fed 

 it every other day with peas, and the other 

 days I fed red wheat with whole Indian corn, 

 which is too heating for summer. There is a 

 frightful waste in cracked corn. Give pigeons 

 plenty of grit and salty water and they can 

 easily digest the large kernels. 



I always kept hemp and millet seeds to feed 

 one or twice a week to the youngsters I was 

 raising for breeders. They are the most ex- 

 pensive grains, but a sack of each lasts for a 

 long time with careful feeding. 



An alfalfa patch materially cuts down the 

 grain bill by being a beneficial food and it is 

 likewise useful for nesting material. I had a 

 patch forty-six by thirty-five feet, with two 

 faucets and a drain pipe from the main pigeon 

 pen for irrigation. With a sickle I cut two 

 sacks full, that is, two sacks laid on the ground 

 and piled up as high as I could carry them with- 

 out spilling, every morning all the year round, 

 when it was not raining. By the time I had 

 reached the lower end of the patch, the upper 

 end was ready to cut. I scattered it on the 



