48 NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK 



send us your freight receipt and count the amount as cash. 

 Or you may order your birds at the same time you do the 

 nest bowls (and other supplies) and when you get your freight 

 receipt send it to us. Orders for one dozen to four dozen 

 bowls should go by express with the birds (tied to the basket) , 

 unless it is desired to have the bowls go with grain, grit, shells, 

 etc., by freight. 



Place one nest bowl in each one of your nest boxes. Let 

 the pairs choose to suit themselves. At the end of the month, 

 when you take out the squabs, take out the nest bowl, clean 

 it and put it back. 



Many customers who do not use egg crates or orange 

 boxes, but build their nest boxes of half-inch or five-eighths 

 lumber, have written us that they used the construction 

 which we illustrate on page 30, and which is good, because 

 cleaning can be better done. The bottoms of the nest boxes 

 are removable and rest on cleats, as the picture shows. The 

 cleats are seven-eighths or one inch square and are nailed 

 to the uprights. When this construction is employed, it is 

 not necessary that you have a block or base screwed to our 

 wood-fibre nest bowl. The nest bowl may be screwed 

 directly onto this removable bottom. If you use egg crates 

 or solid-built nest boxes, you will have to give the wood-fibre 

 nest bowl stability by screwing it to a base of wood seven 

 inches square and about three-quarters of an inch thick. 



When the squab house is ready for the birds, each of the 

 nest boxes has one of these nest bowls. The pigeons build 

 their own nests in them, taking the nesting material and flying 

 to the nest bowl with it. The average nest has from one to 

 two inches of straw compactly and prettily laid by the birds. 

 Some birds use more nesting material than others. After the 

 squabs are hatched, they quickly show that Nature never 

 intended them to have a dirty nest. When they wish to 

 make manure, they back up to the edge of the nest and "shoot" 

 outward and over the edge of the nest bowl into the nest box, 

 which is just where the breeder wants to find it. In a week 

 or two there will be a circle of solid manure in the nest box, 

 but it is out of the nest, and off and away from the feet of 

 the squabs. As the squabs grow older, their claws tread and 

 throw out the straw on which they were hatched, and the nest 

 bowl gets bare again as it was in the first place. The small 



