CHAPTER V. 



WATER AND FEED. 



Necessity of Pure Water and Plenty of it — The Kind of 

 Drinking Dish to Use and the Kind Not to Use — Manage- 

 ment of the Drinking Fountain and Bath Pan — The Feed 

 Trough and Self- Feeder — Feeding Habits — What Grains 

 to Use — How to Mix Red Wheat and Cracked Corn — Use 

 of Grit, Oyster Shell and Salt — How to Feed the Dainties 

 — Keep Feed before Your Flock All the Time. 



Pure water and plenty of it is good for pigeons. When the 

 weather is not too cold, it is the custom of pigeons to get 

 into water, wherever it is. When they cannot bathe in it, 

 they will stick their dirty feet into it. When they cannot 

 get in their feet, they will douse their heads. They are after 

 water all the time. When feeding the squabs, the old bird will 

 fill up its crop with grain, then fly to the water and take a drink, 

 then return and dole out to the squabs the watery and milky 

 mixture on which they fatten. 



The source of drinking water should be separate from the 

 bath pan. They will drink from the bath pan, to be sure, 

 while the water remains comparatively clean, but after a few 

 have bathed in it, it is unfit for any bird to drink, and inside 

 of twenty minutes the pan is not only covered with a whitish, 

 greasy scura, but is dyed greenish from the manure which 

 has washed off their feet. 



There should be drinking water inside the squab house, 

 provided you have not a running stream or some such clean 

 water device in the flying pen. 



The kind of water dish you do not want in the squab hoUse 

 is the kind with the open top, into which the birds can wade, 

 and which they can foul with their droppings. The best device 

 we have found is the self -feeding fountain, such as we illus- 

 trate on page 46. This fountain is made either of crockery 

 or galvanized steel, or iron. Galvanized iron or steel is better 

 than crockery, because if water freezes in such a dish the 

 dish will not be cracked. It will be seen by examination 

 of the self-drinker that it is impossible for the pigeons to foul 



