AN EASY START 33 



should be about as shown in the illustration. You cannot have 

 one long pole inside the squab house for a pigeon perch. If you 

 had such a pole, and your pigeons were perched on it, or some 

 of them were, a bully cock would saunter down the line and 

 push off all the others. 



In the centre of the squab house you place an empty crate 

 or overturned box. The object of this is to break the force 

 of the wind made by the pigeons' wings as they fly in and out 

 of the squab house. Otherwise the floor of the squab house 

 would be swept clean by the force of the wind. It also forms 

 a roosting-place for the birds, and, finally, it is a convenient 

 resting-place for the straw, hay, grass or pine needles out of 

 which the pigeons build their nests. 



The floor of the squab house should be kept clean. We 

 formerly advised that a layer of sand or sawdust half an 

 inch thick be kept' on the floor of the squab house, to absorb 

 the droppings, but we have found a steady and profitable 

 demand for pigeon manure, and this manure is worth scraping 

 up and carefully saving, for its sale will pay from one-quarter 

 to one-third of the grain bill. Use an ice chisel to scrape the 

 droppings from the floor, and pack the manure away in barrels 

 or bags. Clean the floor about once in three weeks, or oftener, 

 depending on the size of your flock. Pigeon manure is in 

 active demand all the time by tanneries. We send the 

 manure from our pigeons by freight to tanneries in Lowell, 

 Lynn, Peabody and Danvers, and are paid for it at the rate 

 of seventy-five cents a bushel. 



We have a building eighty feet long built especially for the 

 drying and storing of the manure. During the years we have 

 been in the squab business, we have sold enough pigeon 

 manure to pay for nearly all the pigeon buildings on our farm. 

 Some pigeon raisers with crude methods know nothing of the 

 value of the manure and lose this by-product. They either 

 ruin it by putting sand or sawdust on the floor of the squab 

 house, or else waste it on their gardens. The pure manure 

 is too valuable for home use. To fertilize our flower and 

 vegetable gardens, and hay field, we scrape up from the 

 flying pens, outdoors, the gravel which has become saturated 

 with manure. It is surprising what an increase in vegetation 

 this manure-soaked gravel will cause. Fresh gravel is put 

 down in the flying pens. 



