28 National Standard Squab Book, 
The nest boxes should be perfectly plain, made of simple boxing in the 
manner described. Do not build up a piece of boxing at the front part of 
the nest to prevent the nappy from being pushed out. Early in our ex- 
Perience we built « few nests in this way, but soon changed them over to 
the simpler form, on account of the difficulty of keeping them clean. The 
droppings bank up at the front of such a nest box and it is almost impos- 
sible to clean thoroughly. 
The dimensions of this unit squab house are as follows: Length, 16 feet; 
width, 12 feet; length of flying pen from end of house to end of yard, 20 
feet; distance from floor of squab house to ridgepole, 12 feet; two windows 
in south wall of squab house, each 2 ft. 2 in. wide and 3ft.10in. high. One 
window in north wall of squab house, 2 ft. 2 in. wide and 8 ft. 10 in. high, 
There is a passageway on the north side of the squab house three feet 
wide, separating the north wall from the vertical row of nest boxes. The 
door of the squab house opens into this passageway so that you can enter 
the house without being seen by the birds, and without disturbing them. 
The backs of the nest boxes are on hinges, so that you may turn them 
back and reach into the nests to take aut the squabs when they are ready 
for the market. If you wish, you may set up rows of nest boxes on the 
east and west walls of the squab house and accommodate 50 more pairs. 
You cannot have a passageway behind these nest boxes on the east and 
west walls, but will approach them from the front by entering the interior 
of the squab house through a wire door which leads from the passageway. 
So, altogether, you can accommodate nearly 100 pairs of birds in such a 
unit house. In order not to. crowd, it is best to put in not more than 75 
pairs. 
Build the first unit so that you may extend it either to the east or west 
(as your land lies) to increase your accommodations. Your squab house 
will always remain 16 feet from north to south, but it may be either 12 
feet from east to west, for one unit, or 24 feet for two units, or 36 feet for 
three units, and so on. We think it is most practical to keep about 48 
pairs of birds in one unit, 48 pairs in the next unit, and so on. Of course 
you may build one long house 1€ feet wide and in length any multiple of 
twelve, and keep all the birds you wish in it, but we do not advise such 
an arrangement. You can keep track of your pairs better if you split a 
big flock up into unit flocks. 
The hinged backs of the nest boxes open into a pair of nest bozes. By 
numbering the hinged backs, one number to a nest, you have a means of 
record keeping which is unequaled. Provide a card index (the cards be- 
ing blank and 3 by 5 inches in size) and number the cards to et aes a 
with the nest boxes, and on these eards you may keep a record of what 
the birds in the nest boxes do. These cards, which are perfectly blank 
except for the numbers they bear, may be kept in a tray such as ali the 
manufacturers of card indexes advertise in the back pages of the maga- 
zines and you can pick out any eard you wish, or turn to it, at once. It 
is much better than keeping a record in a book, for you cannot tear out 
