242 NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK 



has found them superior to all he has tried. He had no culls among the 

 squabs. He has bought largely of our Homers and Carneaux. He had been 

 trying on some white Homers our plan for getting 15 pairs from one pair 

 of breeders in a year and thought the plan was original with him. This is 

 an indication of the careful attention he has given to the details of the 

 business. Here is another plan he has been working. An excess of cocks 

 seems to be one of the troubles of some in raising young birds and for that 

 reason we have requests for single hens. This customer proceeds on the 

 theory that the second egg is said to hatch a hen, so he goes among the nests 

 every day and marks all single eggs 1 with a pencil. Then in a couple of 

 days when the second egg has come he marks it 2. Then he puts both the 2 

 eggs in one nest and both the 1 eggs in the other nest, making a memorandum 

 of the nests and what he has done. When killing day arrives for these nests 

 he saves the 2 squab and kills the 1 squab, thereby hoping to raise two hens. 

 How this will work out in actual practice he does not know, because he has 

 not been doing it long enough. We speak of it here so that our customers 

 may try it if they wish and see how they come out. 



While in some lofts there may be an excess of male birds caused by con- 

 tinuous breeding, it is true cnat the law of the species is to hatch out equally. 

 Otherwise in time, and a comparatively short time too, the entire species 

 would be extinct. It is absolutely not true that more cocks than hens hatch 

 out. The law is that equal numbers hatch out, for this law is necessary to 

 the propagation of the species. 



We have had thousands of customers start with three pairs or six pairs 

 or twelve pairs and increase from that small beginning to 200 or 300 pairs 

 or more, as our letters from customers show. This is proof that the law 

 of equal sex holds fairly good even in the restricted confines of a small squab 

 house. 



Squab raising for profit is a new business for the Connecticut customer 

 above mentioned. He is well up on pigeons as a fancy or rather amusement, 

 having kept in Europe at one time or another a few pairs of all breeds. He 

 has been getting $4.50 for his squabs all summer in Connecticut, with some 

 at $3.50 to his local butcher who retails them at $4.50, unassorted, running 

 over eight pounds to the dozen. He says the more he sees of this business 

 the more he is convinced that conducted right there isibig money in it; but 

 conducted wrong it is a poor business. This is certainly correct, and is why 

 we insist upon our birds being used and managed in the way we tell both 

 in this book, and the special instructions which we send out with every 

 shipment. 



SQUAB HOUSES OF TWO AND THREE STORIES. 



We have been asked by customers whose ground is limited or who happen 

 to have a certain plot, if a two-story house would not be all right in which 

 to raise squabs. Some of these customers have figured out carefully and 

 thoroughly that the construction of the two-story house is cheaper than two 

 one-story houses. A two-story house certainly may be built. We print 

 on the opposite page a photograph of a two and one-half story pigeon house. 

 This breeder is a good customer who has bought about S2000 worth of 

 Plymouth Rock birds of us during the past four years, and he understands 

 what he is about. We asked him to describe his plant. He says this house, 

 which is part of his large plant, was not transformed from an old place, but 



