CHAPTER VII. 



INCREASE OF FLOCK, 



It Is Possible to Breed One Paii- of Squabs Eaeli Month, but in Artual 

 Practice This Is Seldom Attained— The Squab Raiser with Pure 

 Thoroughbred Homers Should Count on Eight or Nine Pairs of 

 Squabs a Year — The Common Pigeon Breeds Only Four or Five 

 Pairs of S(iuabs a Year, But Eats as Much or More Thau the 

 Homer — Differences Between tlie Homer and the Common Pigeon — 

 Good Homers Scarce and the Market for Them Finn and Steady. 



It is theoretically possible for a pair i>f pigeons to bre.d twelve pairs 

 of squabs a year, for it takes only 17 days for the eggs to hatch, and 

 the hen goes to laying again when the hatch is only two weeks old. 

 So, if you start with 12 pairs of Homer pigeons, .and they should 'breed 

 one pair of sci'uabs a month, at the end of the first month you would 

 have 24 squabs; at the end of the second month, 48 squabs; at the end 

 of the third mouth, 72 squabs; at the end of the fourth month, 96 

 squabs; at the end of the fifth month, 120 squabs. Now the first lot of 

 squabs which your birds hatched will be ready to mate and lay eggs, 

 so at the end of the sixth month you should have 16S squabs; at the 

 end of the seventh month, 240 squabs; at the end of the eighth month, 

 336 squabs; at the end of the ninth month, 45G scjuabs; at the end of the 

 tenth month, 600 squabs; at the end of the (deveath month, 768 squabs, 

 and at the end of the twelfth month, 9C0 squabs. Such figures are purely 

 theoretical and are seldom attained in actual practice. It may be called 

 the standard, the ideal, to which we are all working. You will have 

 some pairs in your flock which -svill raise ten and eleven pairs of squabs 

 a year, but the average will be eight or nine pairs of squabs a year. 

 If you get only six or seven pairs, your flock is not pure thoroughbred 

 Homers, or your feeding and nesting arrangements are wrong. In our 

 visit to the New .Jersey squab country, in the summer of 1902, we asked 

 every squab breeder with whom we talked how many pairs a year he 

 was getting from his birds, and about all of them said seven to nine. 

 Thiis experience corresponds with ours. We remember particularly an old 

 gentleman. Preacher Hul>bell, in AHneland, who had been in the squab 

 business for vears but was just going out of it. having sold his place, 

 pigeons and all, to a Swede farmer. He told us he had always made 

 squabs pay him and that his birds, of which he kept a careful record, 

 raised him nine pairs to the year right along. 



It is a well-known fact that the common pigeon will breed only four 



(S3) 



