CHAPTER V. 



WATER AND FEED. 



Necessity of Pure Water ami Plenty of It— Xlie Kind of Drinking Disli 

 to Use and the Kind Xot to Use— ilanagemeni; of the Drinliing 

 Fountain and Bath Pan— The Feed Trough and Self Feeder— Feeding 

 Habits— What Grains to Use— How to Mix Eed Wheat aad Craciied 

 Corn- Use of Grit, Oyster S'hell and Salt— How to Feed the Dainties 

 —Keep Feed Before Your Flocl< All the Time. 



Pure Nvater and plenty of it is a great blessing for pigeons. It is the 

 custom of pigeons to get right into water, wherever it is. When they 

 cannot bathe in it, they will stick their dirty feet into it. Whea they 

 cannot get in their feet, they will douse their heads. They are after 

 water, water all the time. AVheu feeding the squabs, the old bird will 

 fill up its crop with grain, then fly to Ihe water and take a drink, then 

 return and dole out to the squabs the watery and milky mixture on which 

 they fatten. Therefore you should study the water problem and make 

 preparations to give the birds plenty of it, both bathing and drinking 

 water. 



The source of drinking water should be separate from the bath pan. 

 They will drink from the bath pan, to be sure, while the water remains 

 comparatiTely clean, but after a few have bathed in it it is unfit for any 

 bird to drink, and inside of twenty minutes the pan is not only covered 

 with a whitish, greasy scum, but is dyed graenisli from the dung which 

 has washed off their feet. 



There should be drinking water inside the squab house, provided you 

 have not a running stream or some such clean water device in the flying 

 pen. 



The kind of water dish you do not want in the squab house is the 

 kind with the open top, into which the birds can wade, and which they can 

 foul with their droppings. The best device which we have found is the 

 so-called self-feeding poultry fountain, such as we illustrate. This fountain 

 is made either of crockery or tin or galvanized iron. Tin or galvanized 

 iron is better than crockei-y, because if water freezes in such a dish, the 

 dish will not be cracked. We calculate to use the crockery dishes in 

 houses where it is never coin enough to freeze. It will be .seen by exam- 

 ination of the self-drinker that it is impossible for the pigeons to foul the 

 water. The reservoir holds quite a supply of water, which feeds down 

 as fast as it is drunk by the pigeons. We have seen beginners puzzled 

 by these self-drinking dishes; they cannot imagine why the water does 



(.5) 



