60 NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK 



Some squab breeders feed twice a day, as much as the birds 

 will eat up clean, but we do not believe in that system of 

 feeding. Our own success, and the success of our customers 

 in squab raising, is based largely on the fact that we insist on 

 a continuous supply of food for the pigeons, when they are 

 breeding. Use the self-feeder only with birds that are pro- 

 ducing squabs. A new flock should be fed by hand twice 

 daily what they will eat up clean in ten minutes. Keep them 

 eager, active and racy. Do not let them get too fat, for if 

 you do they will not start laying. Some beginners will use 

 up weeks trying to get their birds started, others get all their 

 pairs going in a few days. It is a matter of skillful feeding, 

 exactly as in the case of hens. The best of mated pairs will 

 not produce eggs unless nourished, because the act of copula- 

 tion, as in the case of hens and roosters, has nothing to do 

 with the volume of egg production, but only with the fertility 

 of eggs. 



Food should be at hand in the self-feeder for birds which 

 are breeding. They do not gorge, as a horse will if an un- 

 limited supply of food is set before him. They are not 

 gluttons, like pigs. They do not lose their racy shape. A 

 squab when hungry will squeak loudly to inform its parents 

 of that fact and if you observe a squab house where the two 

 meals a day are in vogue, you will note quite a chorus of 

 squeaks. In a house where there is feed always at hand, 

 you will not hear many hungry squeaks. It is greatly to 

 your interest that the crops of your young birds be filled with 

 food. The more their crops are stuffed with food, the quicker 

 they will fatten and the fatter they will get. The parent 

 birds should at all times be able to fill up their crops with feed 

 and water and then fly to the nest to disgorge for the benefit 

 of the squabs. 



Squab breeders differ concerning self-feeders, same as 

 mothers differ about ways of bringing up babies. Each squab 

 breeder thinks his method of feeding is the best. We speak 

 not wholly from our own experience, but the experiences of 

 thousands of customers extending over many years. There 

 was formerly the same prejudice against self-feeders for 

 poultry, until a man in Ohio, raising poultry with striking 

 success by the aid of self-feeders, made his brethren sit up and 

 take notice. In our stories of success printed at the back of 



