National Standard Squab Book. 47 
One way of mating pigeons is to turn males and females in equal 
number into the same pen. ‘They will seek their own mates and settle 
down to steady reproduction. Another method is to place the male and 
female which you wish to pair in a mating coop or hutch. In the course 
of a few days they will mate and then you may turn them loose in the big 
pen with the others. The latter method is necessary when improving your 
flock by the addition of new blood, or when keeping a positive record of 
the ancestry of each pair. By studying your matings, you may improve 
the efficiency of your tock. If you are raising squabs for breeders, you 
should use the mating coop constantly so as not to inbreed, which the 
young pigeons might do if left the chance. 
In case a pigeon loses its mate by death or accident, the sex of the dead 
one must be ascertained and a live pigeon of the same sex introduced to 
the pen to mate with the odd one. Or the live one should be removed from 
the pen and placed in the mating coop with a pigeon of the opposite sex. 
The mating coop should have a partition of lattice work or wire. Place 
the cock in one side, the hen in the other, and leave them thus for two or 
three days to flirt and tease each other, then remove the central lattice 
work or wire and they usually will mate. If they show no disposition to 
mate but on the contrary fight, replace the partition and try them for two 
or three days longer. If they refuse to mate after two or three thorough 
trials, do not experiment any more with them, but select other mates. 
The determination of the sex of pigeons is difficult. The bones at the 
vent of a female are as a rule wider apart than of a male If you hold the 
beak of a pigeon in one hand and the feet in the other, stretching them 
out, the male bird usually will hug his tail close to its body—the female 
will throw her tail. The best way to determine the sex is to watch the 
birds. The male is more lively than the female, and does more cooing, and 
in flirting with her usually turns around several times, while the female 
seldom turns more than half way around. The male may be seen pecking 
at the female and driving her. to nest. When one pigeon is seen chasing 
another inside and outside the squab house, the driven one is the female 
and the driver her mate. 
Neither the squab-breeder nor the flying-Homer breeder is much con- 
cerned about the color of feathers. There are blue checkers, red checkers, 
black checkers, silver, blue, ‘brown, red, in fact about all the colors of the 
rainbow. Color has no relation to the ability of a pair to breed a large 
pair of squabs. We wish specially to emphasize the fact that the color 
of the feathers has no influence on the color of the skin of the squab. A 
white-feathered bird does not mean a whiter-skinned squab. The feed 
affects the color of the meat a little. A corn-fed pigeon will ‘be yollower 
than one fed on a mixture. Squabs with dark skins (almost black in 
some cases) are the product of blood matings. The trouble with a dark- 
colored squab is in the blood and the only remedy is to get rid of them 
either by killing the parents or by remating. Usually the trouble comes 
from one parent bird, which you can find by turning up the feathers and 
