APPENDIX G 



331 



HOW I WET $4000 A YEAR 

 WITH SQUABS, by Oscar 

 Maerzke. 1 have been in the 

 squab business thirteen years. 

 I nave a mixed flock containing 

 both common pigeons and 

 Homers. The squabs from the 

 Homers are larger and biing 

 more money, and the Homers 

 breed better than the com- 

 mons. I make $4000 a year 

 profit. I always have run the 

 business alone, up to last year, 

 when I took a partner, Charles 

 Lutovsky. In the county where 

 we live (Wisconsin) many of 

 the farmers breed common 

 pigeons. We have an automo- 

 bile with a rack on back to 

 hold pigeon crates. My part- 

 ner goes out daily in this 

 automobile, to gather up the 

 squabs from the farmers, cover- 

 ing regular routes. He brings 

 them home aUve and I kill 

 and pluck them and ship them 

 along with the squabs we raise. 

 We have shipped squabs as 

 far East as New York. Just 

 now we are shipping to Chicago, 

 about 150 miles distant. We 

 use any kind of a second-hand 

 box, provided it is clean and 

 fairly tight, for shipping, put- 

 ting a layer of ice on top of the 

 squabs and nailing the box up tight, 

 empties are not returned to us. 



My home is half a mile down the street from 

 the squab plant. I have built one residence 

 from squab profits and am now building 

 another alongside my present home. 



It costs us $3500 a year to feed our birds, 

 or a little less than $1 a year a pair. An im- 

 portant part of the daily ration is a wild seed 

 mixture, bought cheaply. We get it from 

 a brewery. It is what is left after cleaning 

 barley for malt. The brewery, having no 

 further use for this refuse, sells it cheap. It 

 is perfectly clean, dry, sweet and good, how- 

 ever. The pigeons are very fond of it and it 

 does them good. Of course, when they are 

 eating it they are not eating the more expensive 

 wheat and corn. The mixture contains the 

 small black kernels of wild buckwheat, also 

 cockle seed, flaxseed, the seed of pigeon grass, 

 and some barley. We store it in bins and it 

 does not have much of a tendency to heat or 

 spoil. 



The squabs from our common pigeons and 

 the common squabs bought from the farmers 

 weigh about seven pounds to the dozen. 

 They are smaller, do not look so good and 

 do not bring so much in the market as the 

 Homer squabs. The squabs trom our Homers 

 weigh eight or nine pounds to the dozen and 

 we have some ten-pound Homer squabs. 

 When I started in the business a squab was 

 a squab, no matter what size, and brought 

 a flat price, but now, on account of the enor- 



MAERZKE'S S4000-A- YEAR PROFIT SQUAB PLANT. 



The 



mous number of superior, large-size Homers 

 which Elmer Rice has imported from Belgium 

 and sold in this country, the small-size native 

 American. Homers and the common pigeons 

 have been overshadowed in the markets. 

 Squabs are now graded by weight when sold, 

 and the more they weigh to the dozen, the 

 more they bring. I have always sold to 

 commission men and dealers in the large 

 cities. 



We have no heat in our houses. In the 

 winter the temperature goes as low as twenty 

 degrees below zero. The squab production 

 falls off some in winter and we lose a few 

 squabs and eggs by freezing, but this is trifling 

 compared to the cost of installing and running 

 a heating apparatus, which is out of the ques- 

 tion with our houses built and located as they 

 are. We have so many pigeons in each of 

 our three flocks (and a fourth flock of one 

 thousand pairs to be soon added) that the 

 houses are kept quite comfortable by the heat 

 given off by the birds. 



Mrs. W. R, Lycan, a customer in far o£E 

 Oregon, writes us March 31, 1911: " I bought 

 three pairs of Plymouth Rock Homers just 

 one year ago and have raised over seventy, 

 lost very few. One pair has raised nine pairs 

 and is setting again. This notwithstanding 

 the fact that we have moved during this time 

 and had them in a coop for several days, and 

 have never had a flying pen; just have them 

 in an open-front chicken house. How's that? " 



