46 National Standard Squab Book. 
ceived the attention of the cock bird. It is common for a hen pigeon at 
five months, and sometimes four, to lay an egg, but as a rule those first 
eggs from a young hen are not fertile because she has not yet mated with 
the cock bird. After a hen pigeon has reached six months of age, and is 
paired with a male, it is safe to assume as an almost invariable rule that 
the eggs she lays will be fertile. When the male bird gets to be six to ten 
years old, he may lose his vitality, and the eggs laid by his mate will not 
be fertile. Then it is necessary to provide the female with a new mate. 
The breeders, we sell are of prime breeding age, from eight months to 
eightees months old, and the eggs laid by hens of that age will be fertile, 
and of full size, and the squabs ‘bred from them will not be scrawny and 
lacking in vitality. 
From the day of its hatching to market time the squab is fed by its 
parents. The first food is a liquid secreted in the crop of both cock and 
hen, and called pigeons’ milk. The parent pigeons open their bills and the ' 
squabs thrust their bills within to get sustenance. This supply of pigeons’ 
miik lasts from five to six days. It gradually grows thicker and in a week 
is found to be mixed with corn and wheat in small particles. When about 
teu days old, the squabs are eating hard grain from the crops of the ma- 
ture cock and hen, which fill up at the trough, then take a drink of water 
and fly to the nest to minister to the little ones. You see how important 
it is to have food available at all times. 
In 14, 15 or 16 days after the first pair of squabs have been hatched, the 
cock begins “driving” the hen again. This shows the necessity of a 
second nest for the pair. In this second nest the hen lays two more eggs, 
and the care of the first pair of squabs, now between two and three weeks 
old, devolves upon the cock. When this pair is four weeks old, it is taken 
out of the nest anc killed and both the mature birds are concerned then 
only with the new hatch. This sequenee of eggs and hatches goes on all 
the time. 
If there are not two nests, the two vew eggs will be laid in the nest 
where are the growing squabs and the parents in their eagerness to sit on 
the new eggs will push the squabs out of the nest and they will die for 
lack of sustenance. 
The hen lays the eggs about four o'clock in the afternoon. The cock and 
hen take turns at covering the eggs, the hen sitting during the night until 
about ten o’clock- in the morning, when the cock relieves her, remaining on 
until the latter part of the afternoon. 
When the nappies are changed at the end of two weeks, the nest-box 
should be scraped clean with a trowel. When the squabs are taken out 
for market at the end of four weeks, the nappy should be washed and 
scalded and the nest-box whitewashed. If the nappies are changed and 
the whitewash used regularly, no trouble from parasites will result. In 
the summer it is well to add a little carboliec acid to the whitewash as an 
extra precaution. Sprinkle unslaked lime on the floor of the squab honse 
and in the nest boxes. 
