244 NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK 



picking and packing squabs. The building has 17 pens, and each pen has 

 its flying pen which reaches the ground. For the first floor, the flying pens 

 are nine feet wide and seven feet high, and extend out 20 feet from the 

 building. Beyond the south end of flying pen for flrst floor, the flying pen 

 extends another 20 feet. This extended pen is divided into two pens 10x9 

 feet on the ground. The birds from the second and third floors reach these 

 pens through a fly-way above the flying pen of the first floor, one-half as wide. 

 You will notice a tank (shown in photograph) on the roof. Water is forced 

 from a cistern into this tank. All pens outside are connected with water 

 main, making it easy to give the birds a bath. 



SQUABS FED ARTIFICIALLY. 



Sometimes it is desirable or necessary to feed a squab artificially, introduc- 

 ing the right kind of a mixture with- the fingers or with a syringe. These 

 efforts are more or less crude. The best way is as it is done in Italy, but it 

 is doubtful whether our squab raisers would employ it. We first saw this 

 done in Bologna, Italy. The squabs are shipped into Bologna from the 

 outlying country when they are about the same age as our squabs, four 

 weeks. They are always shipped in alive in common slatted coops. It is 

 quite necessary that the squabs be fed before they are re-shipped alive as 

 they always are to Paris or Monte Carlo or Aix-les-Bains. They are fed in 

 the following manner: The workman mixes up a sort of thick gruel with 

 grain and water. All the grain which he uses is quite fine, such as the finest 

 size of cracked corn. Then he fills his mouth with a quantity of this mixture 

 and begins feeding the squabs. He takes up a squab in his two hands and 

 holds the bill of the squab to his mouth. The squab is hungry and naturally 

 open its bill, or if not the operator opens the bill of the squab for him. The 

 operator then with his tongue forces into the mouth of the squab a quantity 

 of tlie mixture, and the squab fills its crop. Immediately another squab is 

 taken and handled in the same manner. This process is done with great 

 skill and rapidity. We watched one operator feed a coop of 2J: squabs in 

 five minutes. This artificial feeding of squabs is very common in Bologna 

 and in other European cities, where it has been going on for years. The 

 operators show no repugnance, but keep at the work as part of their daily 

 round of duties month after month. 



NESTS ON THE FLOOR. 



It is impossible to prevent some pairs from building on the floor of the 

 squab house. Squab breeders who have a large bump of system and order 

 are cast down because all of their pairs do not stick to the nest boxes all 

 the time. You cannot force certain pairs to breed in the nest boxes. They 

 will pick out a corner on the floor or alongside of the crate containing the 

 nesting material or under a tier of nest boxes. There they will build their 

 nest and rear their squabs and they are generally left alone. Do not take 

 their nests and eggs and put them in one of the nest boxes, for if you do it 

 is not likely the birds will follow. 



Squabs from such nests should be carefully watched and should be taken 

 away to be killed before they are strong enough to walk around on the floor. 

 You will have to take away such squabs when they are full and plump at 

 three weeks of age. If you leave them in the nest too long it is quite usual 

 for them to get up and walk around on the floor and as soon as they do this 



