42 Fancy Pigeons. 



broken, there is hope for it. A good thing to mend such a flaw is the 

 marginal paper round sheets of postage stamps, a piece of which the 

 fancier should always keep in his pocket. Early in the season, thin- 

 shelled eggs are often laid, and such generally get broken before being 

 sat on many days. Shoxild the fancier find his hen pigeons laying many 

 eggs without shells or with thin shells, it is time for him to attend to 

 their supply of old lime and gravel. Sometimes a good egg will get very 

 much indented a few days before it is due to hatch. So long as the skin 

 be not broken, and it seems to get tougher day by day, the indented 

 shell may be carefully patched up with gummed paper. 



As a rule, young pigeons that require assistance from the ^^% are not 

 worth the trouble in connection with them. Short-faced tumblers are 

 an exception ; but all other breeds, if possessed of the necessary 

 strength to develop into healthy birds, should be allowed to hatch with- 

 out any interference whatever. 



Young pigeons when hatched are very helpless objects, but grow so 

 fast when all goes well that a great increase in their size maybe observed 

 day by day. They are born blind and covered with a yellow down, which, 

 however, varies much according to the colour they are to be. Silvers and 

 yellows are hatched with hardly any down on them, and this is a good 

 indication of these colours. Yellows of the deepest and richest tint are, 

 however, not hatched so thinly covered as those of a washed-out or 

 mealy hue, such as is too often the case with many of our yellow 

 pigeons, and attention to this will be no uncertain indication of 

 the quality of colour that will be developed in due time in a newly- 

 hatched squab. When a week old, the young ones will be well stubbed 

 over ^vith feathers, which in another week will have begun to break 

 and give a good idea of colour and marking. If, during this time, a 

 daily increase in size be not observed, or if one keeps getting behind the 

 other, something is wrong ; but unless the want is evidently from lack 

 of food or warmth, nothing can be done with squabs so young. The 

 bowels or digestive organs are out of order, and they seldom come 

 right. The young of all small and hardy pigeons are as big as their 

 parents at from four to five weeks old, when they will leave the nest 

 and soon begin to feed themselves. 



Feeders, such as common pigeons, Dragoons, Antwerps, and the strong 

 and coarse specimens of fancy varieties, are used as nurses for the more 



