66 PROFITABLE riGEON BREEDING 



of the mating coop. Here lie supplies them with grain, water 

 and health grit, having only one container for the grain so that 

 in eating they will get accustomed to each other. If these birds 

 tight at first separate them, moving one or the other to another 

 coop for a day. I^ut them back together at the expiration of this 

 time and let them remain there together for a few days, never 

 putting the two birds in the same side of the coop. As a general 

 rule the two birds so treated will mate. If you see them kissing 

 and billing through the slatted partition you may then put 

 them in the "Test Pen," and allow them to start to work. 

 Watch them closely and should they not start building a nest 

 in a few days try them in the mating coop again or search for 

 other birds to mate them with. If, however, they go to work 

 when placed in the "Test Pen" let them raise a pair of squabs, 

 band them properly and then place them in the breeding lofts 

 or sell them as you may wish. Before selling young mated pairs 

 of this kind we would advise letting them raise more than one 

 pair of squabs so that you may malce sure that they are really 

 mated correctly and ready to be sold. 



If, for any reason, a mated pair in the breeding lofts do not 

 work so well together try remating them with other birds by 

 using the mating coop, tlie cock with a strange hen and the 

 hen with a strange cock bird. Sometimes this will work very 

 nicely. 



In mating pigeons, we can, with tlie use of a little patience, 

 secure proper coloring, correct size and breed them to a standard 

 but it must be done with some reason back of it all. Suppose 

 we have a breed whose standard calls for a well rounded skull. 

 We have an excellent cock bird that is strong in skull section 

 and weak in breadth of back and we also have a hen with a 

 very wide back and not so good a skull section. If these two 

 birds are mated together we will get one or two youngsters 

 that will be a happy medium. However, were either of these 

 birds mated to others that were weak in the same sections our 

 time would have been wasted for the youngsters very likely 

 inherit the same defects and probably be worse tnan the 



