"National Standard Squab Book. 25 
Evevy poultryman knows that he cannot entrust the regulation of tempera- 
tures of incubators and brooders to an ignorant hired man, but even a boy 
or girl, or under-the-average farm hand, knows enough to fill up the bath- © 
pans and feeding-troughs tor squab-breeders, leaving the time of the 
owner fiee for correspondence and the more skilful work of killing and 
shipping the squabs. 
The primary object is to breed squahs for market as cheaply, as easily 
and as fast as possible, without the expenditure of a dollar for fanciful 
or impractical appurtenances. 
Oo not think it is necessary to heat your squab house. A squab house 
which has the chill of dampness taken off it by hot water or steam pipes 
will raise more squabs than a house not heated, but a flock of pigeons in a 
small house throw off considerable heat from their bodies and will breed 
in cold weather all right. After you have developed your plant and have 
a large business which you wish to keep at the highest state of efficiency, 
you may heat your squab house. The idea of heat in winter time is to 
keep the birds more contented and get more squabs out of them, and 
not at all to keep them alive. Do not be afraid that your pigeons will 
freeze to death. 
City people can keep pigeons in the garret of a house, or the loft of a 
barn, without a foot of ground being needed. In such a case the flying 
pen, or place to which the pigeons go for sun and air, can be built out 
on a platform. The illustration shows how to utilize a window leading 
-from a garret. If you think that rats will trouble you in either a garret 
or barn loft, cover the floor inside, especially the corners, with fine wire 
netting through which it will be impossible for the rats to gnaw from 
below. 
One of our customers in Illindis, a rich horse breeder having a barn 
some 200 feet long, has turned the whole upper story into a loft for 
pigeons. The flying pen takes in the whole back of the barn. There are 
windows and no doors on this side of the barn, the horses using doors on 
the other side, so this leaves the upper story of the barn, and its whole 
back yard, free for the pigeons. 
How We Rie Our Supping. BASKETS FOR TWELVE Pairs. 
