APPENDIX G 



357 



SQUABS FOR ME IN- 

 STEAD OF FANCY POUL- 

 TRY, by W.H. Brown. I have 

 had a stock of Extra Plymouth 

 Rock Homers since January 1, 

 and have been saving most of 

 my squabsf or breeders. I have 

 sold some squabs and received 

 thirty-five pents each for them. 

 People say my squabs are the 

 nicest they have ever seen. I 

 have had calls for ten times as 

 many squabs as I have raised; 

 some one is waniir.g from two 

 to a dozen every day. There 

 are squabs to be had here ( N orth 

 Carolina), but none hke mine. 

 They sell for twenty-five cents 

 each and weigh about six to 

 eight ounces, while my squabs 

 weigh twelve to sixteen ounces, 

 so you can plainly see why the 

 people are after mine. I have 

 also had many calls for breed- 

 ers, and hope some day to be 

 able to fill them. 



I have been raising fancy 

 poultry for five years, and I find the pigeons 

 have got the chickens skirmed a country block. 

 They are a great deal less care and more 

 profit. The pigeons for me every time. I 

 have plenty of room and can raise most of my 

 feed, and intend making squabs my business. 



I live two miles out of the city , and have been 

 for the last four years with the largest retail 

 grocery firm here, and in this way have learned 

 all the best people, and how to deal with them. 

 I am going to build a new squabhouse soon. 



WHY I PREFER PINE NEEDLES FOR 

 ira:STS, by H. A. Rice. Nest material is 

 indispensable to the squab breeders as well as 

 to the chicken, turkey, duck and geese men. 

 This we learn as one of our first lessons in the 

 handling of all domestic fowls. When it has 

 to be bought, we try to get the least expensive 

 material, and usually that is the last real 

 thought, so we hike after a bale of straw, cut 

 it open and spread it out on the floor or in 

 crates or nests, so the fowls can get at it. Now, 

 everything goes well for a while, but by and 

 by the day surely comes that we find the 

 chicken and squabhouse is alive, yes, just 

 crawling away, and so we have a job on hand. 

 Here is the job: Take a pencil and paper and 

 count the number of straws you put into the 

 house for your birds (sure afi fowls have lice 

 more or less), count the number of lice eggs and 

 lice in each (incubator) straw. Do not use 

 straw. It is an incubator, and your birds the 

 brooders. I have this winter experimented 

 with pine needles, the foliage from pine and 

 fir trees. The birds like it equal to the tobacco 

 stems. I use alfalfa. The chaff or foliage is 

 just the thing for your hens if cleaned and mixed 

 with bran. Your pigeons will eat it if mixed 

 with salt after it cools. (Do not give the 

 salted to the hens, as it is sure death.) On 

 page 349, December number of the Squab 



CARNEAUX SQUABS SEVENTEEN OUNr'ES EACH. 



Magazine Brother Newcomer says he feeds 

 cabbage and lettuce as green feed. The 

 lettuce is all right, but no cabbage for me. I 

 have known of the finest fowls and birds and 

 canaries to be killed by feeding cabbage. It 

 bloats them just as it does cattle. (I once lost 

 in that way, a cow for which I had paid S60 

 in gold.) Often people ask me about feeding 

 green food, and I always advise against the 

 practice. If your bird s have their liberty, 

 then that is different. 



I notice that oats and barley are not recom- 

 mended for pigeons with squabs because the 

 sharp points are supposed to cut the thin 

 crops of the young. Do you suppose there 

 would be any harm in feeding vetches mixed 

 with oats? The farmers aroiind here raise 

 vetches and oats together, the oats to hold 

 the vetches up, and when they are threshed 

 together the two grains are mixed. I can 

 get this mixture about harvest time quite 

 cheap, about $1 to $1.25 a hundred. So if 

 I could feed it, I should like to do it. The 

 mixture is about two or three times vetches 

 to one of oats. I should naturaUy suppose 

 that if I gave the birds plenty of wheat and 

 other grain they would have sense (or instinct) 

 enough not to feed their squabs anything that 

 wotdd hurt them. I have been in the pigeon 

 business about three years. Have now about 

 140 pairs, mostly Homers, with a sprinkling 

 of Runts and Cameaux, all doing nicely. — 

 H. Denlinger, Oregon. Vetches are a first- 

 class food for pigeons. Feed that mixture by 

 all means, if you can get it at that price. 



The breeder who is selUng squabs at low 

 prices is either ignorant or is himself low- 

 priced and can be bought cheap on any proposi- 

 tion. 



