APPENDIX G 



305 



I TAKE SQUABS TO 

 MARKET IN A BASKET, by 

 Thomas Hanigan. Four and 

 a half years ago 1 bought 

 twelve pairs of first-class 

 Homers. They proved so in- 

 teresting and convincing that 

 I bought six pairs more a few- 

 months later. These were all 

 I ever purchased, but they 

 bred so well there are now 

 250 full-grown birds, and I 

 have been marketing nearly 

 all the squabs for the last 

 year. 



I never had any pigeons 

 before, so I studied their hab- 

 its and requirements as I 

 went along, aided by the 

 standard literature on the 

 subject. 



In these four years, but two 

 of the pigeons " went light " 

 and there have Ipeen but six 

 cases of canker with the 

 squabs, never any with the 

 old birds. There never has 

 been any sickness. One night 

 there was a commotion in the 

 flock. Taking my lantern, I 

 went to investigate and found 

 a rat in the loft , which I killed . 

 I concluded that the only way 

 the rat could have got in was 

 by climbing a post of the fly- 

 ing pen, which was against 

 the bam and near the opening 

 to the loft. To guard against 

 its occurring again I took a two-foot strip 

 of zinc . and nailed it around this post, and 

 have never seen another rat. There has been 

 no trouble with lice or mites, for I used to- 

 bacco stems when I could get them, for nest- 

 ing material, and I spray a little phenol dis- 

 infectant around the loft every time I clean 

 oub. 



My regular employment as baggage- master 

 on the railroad makes it necessary for me to 

 leave the house at 6 o'clock in the morning 

 and I do not get home again until 7.30 at 

 night. This forces me to feed and water very 

 early in the morning, and kill the squabs for 

 market in the evening. Cleaning out the 

 pen is a once-a-week job, left until Sundays, 

 This does not take very long. 



My staple feed is red wheat and cracked 

 com the year round, in the proportions of 

 two-thirds wheat to one-third cracked com in 

 summer and the reverse in winter. For 

 change and luxury, I give a little kafEir corn, 

 millet, buckwheat and hempseed. Health 

 grit, which I buy regularly, fine ground oyster 

 shells, lump salt and straw are kept before 

 them all the time, and common gravel on the 

 ground of the flying pen. 



The one hundred pairs of Homers which are 

 mated supply me with an average of two 

 dozen squabs a week for market. Killing 

 them in the evening, as I am obliged to do, 



MR. HANIGAN'S SQUABS WEIGHING A POUND APIECE. 



there is some food left in their crops. I 

 neither bleed, pick nor dress them, for this is 

 the way I sell them at the Boston market. 

 They weigh a pound apiece. As my run on 

 the train takes me to Boston every day, I put 

 the squabs in a basket and carry them with 

 me. There I sell them to the marketman who 

 will give me the best price. There is never 

 any trouble in selling all I can raise. Last 

 week (the first week in April), T got $3.60 a 

 dozen; the week before, $4 a dozen; and the 

 week before that, $4.50 a dozen. Selling in 

 this way there is no bother of picking, pack- 

 ing, icing nor paying express charges. I have 

 never tried to sell any squabs to the summer 

 people who come to my town, for they seem to 

 think I ought to sell them cheap because I am 

 in the country. 



ENJOY GREEN THINGS, by Edward Rob- 

 erts. I have a new idea. Pigeons eat water 

 cress and radish tops, also green mustard 

 leaves, and they like all. I feed them all the 

 bread they can eat. 



One pigeon laid an egg in a nestbox with 

 no bowl and without even building a nest, so 

 I put straw in a nestbowl and placed the &g,g 

 in it. She took to it right off and laid 

 another egg in two days, by its side. She is 

 setting now. — L. Franklin. 



