LAYING AND HATCHING 67 
weeks old, it is taken out of the nest and killed and both the 
mature birds are concerned then only with the new hatch. 
This sequence of eggs and hatches goes on all the time. 
If there are not two nests, the two new eggs will be laid in 
the nest where are the growing squabs. The parents in their 
eagerness to sit on the new eggs will push the squabs out of 
the nest and they will die for lack of sustenance. 
The hen lays the eggs about four o’clock in the afternoon. 
The cock and hen take turns at covering the eggs, the hen 
sitting during the night until about ten o’clock in the morning, 
when the cock relieves her, remaining on until the latter part 
of the afternoon. 
When the squabs are taken out for market at the end of four 
weeks, the nest bowl and nest box should be cleaned. If 
this cleaning is done once a week, no trouble from parasites 
will result. In the summer it is well to add a little carbolic 
acid to the whitewash as an extra precaution. Sprinkle 
unslaked lime on the floor of the squab house and in the nest 
boxes, and spray squab-fe-nol freely. 
One way of mating or pairing pigeons is to turn males and 
females in equal number into the same pen. They will seek 
their own mates and settle down to steady reproduction. 
Another method is to place the male and female which you 
wish to pair in a mating coop or hutch. In the course of a few 
days they will mate or pair and then you may turri them loose 
in the big pen with the others. The latter method is necessary 
when improving your flock by the addition of new blood, or 
when keeping a positive record of the ancestry of each pair. 
By studying your matings, you may improve the efficiency 
of your flock. 
In the case of a new flock of-pigeons shipped to a new 
home, all do not go to work at the same time. Those pairs 
which get to work first are bothered by the slower pairs. To 
judge from the advertisements of some breeders, anxious to 
claim everything for their birds and their wonderful matings, 
the beginner would think that all the birds he buys from them 
will go to work immediately when released in their new home. 
This is far from the truth. The pairs will go to work to suit 
themselves as to time. Some will be quick, others slow. As. 
fast as each pair goes to work, it should be caught and placed 
in the breeding pen. The first pen, into which the birds 
