The Feather's Practical Pigeon Book 



full of hard grain and his body cold and clammy. This 

 shows the old birds have been feeding grain it can not 

 digest and that it is not benefiting the squab. There is 

 not much hope for such a case except to keep it warm 

 by some artificial means and give some warm, soft food. 

 This will sometimes save it. 



Young, healthy pigeons grow very fast when properly 

 fed ; in fact, you can see the increase in size from day to 

 day. Often one of the young pigeons will grow faster 

 than the other, which shows that the stronger bird is 

 getting the most of the feed. In this case it will be 

 necessary to give the weaker one some assistance by 

 artificial feeding as heretofore recommended. While 

 I believe cleanliness to be a necessity and every way an 

 advantage, I do not believe in carrying it so far as to 

 interfere with breeding operations, and think that the 

 less the old and young both are disturbed the better the 

 chances for success. Some breeders make a practice 

 of cleaning their nest-pans during the breeding season, 

 every few days, transferring the young to a fresh bed of 

 sawdust, by exchanging the nest-pans. This may work 

 well with quiet dispositioned birds, but I believe the bet- 

 ter way would be, not to disturb the young birds at all 

 until ready to leave the nests themselves. Of course, 

 the accumulation of filth about the nest will be consider- 

 able, but if this is frequently sprinkled with sawdust or 

 what- is even better, land plaster, it will absorb all the 

 ammonia and render it dry. I think it will be found 

 especially in the case of shy, suspicious birds, that they 

 will feed the young longer and also that the young birds 

 will stick to the nest longer than if frequently moved, 

 a condition very desirable to prevent their being abused, 

 as they frequently are when out of the nest before they 

 can care for themselves. 



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