National Standard Squab Book. 59 
them just right and you will be surprised that this part of the business 
ever could have discouraged anybody. 
If you number the nails which you have driven into the studding, you 
will know just how many squabs you hang up, and you will not have 
to handle the squabs a second time to count them. 
The ideal squab which brings the highest price in the market is not 
only large and plump, but has a clean crop, so that no food will be left 
in it to. sour. No blood shows anywhere on the body and its feet are 
elcan. Ship dn small quantities, especially in the summer. Do not pack 
in an enormous box, or the bottom layers will suffer. 
A squab should be killed, as we have stated, when from three to four 
weeks old, most generally at four weeks. Do not wait until it is five or 
six weeks old, when it may have left the nest. As soon as a squub is 
old enough to get out of the nest and walk around on the floor of the 
squab house, it quickly trains off its fat and grows lean and slender. 
Its flesh ‘also loses its pure white color and takes on a darker shade. 
You do not want either of these two conditions. 
If you tie up your killed squabs by the feet when shipping to market, 
do not tie a lean with a fat squab, for if you do the dealer probably will- 
give you the price of the lean one. Put the fat squabs in one bunch and 
the iean squabs in another bunch. If you are shipping to two dealers, 
you can very often get the top price from both by giving one your best 
squabs and the other your second best. 
Fill this berry crate with nesting material (straw cut into six inch lengths, and hay, mixed 
about equally) and place it in centre of squab house. The cover prevents the birds from fouling the 
nesting material. They stick their bills through the slats, select the wisps they want, and fly to 
nests. 
