Vol. LXI No. 2742. 
NEW YORK, AUGUST 16, 1902. 
$1 PER YEAR 
A WESTERN SQUAB PLANT . 
FAILURES AND SUCCESSES. 
Housing, Feeding, Packing and Selling. 
BUILDING AND FLY-YARD.—Early in the Win¬ 
ter of 1900 five young business men of West Union, 
Iowa, conceived the idea of going into the business 
of raising squabs on a large scale for market as a 
sort of side issue to the business in which they were 
already engaged. Their plan was well arranged, but 
they had no real estate upon which to locate the 
plant, so they called in the owner of 
“Eastnor”—a small country place just 
outside the city limits—and to him di¬ 
vulged their plans and presented their 
proposition. The Eastnor Pigeon Co. 
was formed, and early in April ma¬ 
terial was on the ground for a house 
64 feet long, 14 feet wide and 14 feet 
high, and a fly-yard 64 feet wide, 156 
feet long and 14 feet high covered with 
wire netting. The latter is made 
of cedar telephone poles 14 feet high, 
set 12 feet apart. Each pole is braced 
on the inside by a similar pole. Be¬ 
tween each of the outside poles is set 
a White oak fence-post that helps to 
support the six-foot board fence that surrounds the 
yard, as shown in Fig. 224. Through the yard four 
rows of poles are set, and over the top of each wire 
cables are drawn taut, running east and west and 
north and south, to support the wire netting. The 
netting is supported on the outside by 2x4 scantlings, 
and it was found when tightening the wire that they 
were not stiff enough, so they were supported in the 
center in the manner shown at Fig. 225. 
THE FOUNDATION STOCK.—When the house was 
enclosed the company began buying ordinary pigeons 
wherever they could be found, the first 
two dozen being caught in a church 
steeple. Buying continued until near¬ 
ly 1,000 had been secured. Picking 
them up in this way we got birds of 
all ages, colors, crosses and degrees of 
vitality. Some were infested with the 
feather louse, some inherited consump¬ 
tion and canker, while others were so 
liberty-loving that they pined away 
and died in captivity. At any rate the 
mortality among the birds the first 
Summer and Fall was appalling from 
some cause, and despite our best ef¬ 
forts they continued to die until cold 
weather set in. Since then the loss 
from sickness has been but a trifle. 
REMODELING THE PLANT—At 
that time the building was one large 
loom from floor to rafters, with two 
rows of nest boxes on the sides and 
one end of the room. Two cupola ven¬ 
tilators were on the roof, screen wire 
nailed to the roof-boards preventing 
the birds from entering them. After 
about 10 months’ trial, during which time no revenue 
was derived from the business, some of the young 
men lost faith in the enterprise and offered their 
stock for sale. The writer of this article still had 
faith enough to give it further trial, so bought the 
other interests and has since carried on the business 
in the name of the Eastnor Pigeon Co. I at once set 
about remodeling the building, making it two stories 
and dividing the upper story into five rooms; a three- 
foot hall running along one side down to the last 
room is shown in Fig. 226. Nest boxes about 12 inches 
square were built on either side of each room, the 
front board being hung on hinges to facilitate clean¬ 
ing out. The ventilators were closed, as it was 
thought they caused a draft upon the birds. So much 
difficulty and loss of eggs was caused by the birds 
nesting on the floor that a row of nests was built 
on the floor entirely around the lower room. This 
lessened the loss of eggs greatly, but when the mother 
bird makes her nest on the floor “you may break, you 
may shatter the nest if you will, but the bird will 
continue to lay there still.” 
FEEDING AND WATERING.—I have never prac¬ 
ticed keeping feed before the birds at all times in 
feed boxes. The yard is so perfectly drained that 
feeding on the ground is practiced the year round, 
the feed, consisting of cracked corn, good wheat and 
millet, being scattered on the earth. In the upstairs 
rooms are small feed boxes, six of them, holding a 
half bushel, which are filled once every day. A large 
lump of the hardest kind of rock salt is kept before 
the birds at all times, also some large lumps taken 
from ordinary barrel salt. One load of river sand is 
put in the yard each year, and old plaster and crushed 
oyster shell seem to be indispensable to the welfare 
of the birds. They are very fond of all kinds of salt 
fish, but my experience has been that large quanti¬ 
ties are death to small nestlings. I always feed two 
kinds of grain at one time. Pigeons are strictly 
grain-eating birds, and require but very little feed of 
other kinds. Watering is a problem that I have not 
solved to my entire satisfaction. An underground pipe 
from the tank at the windmill furnishes a supply in 
Summer, but is not used in freezing weather. Last 
Winter I used a double hog-watering fountain, under 
which a lighted kerosene lamp kept the water at an 
even temperature day and night. This gave the birds 
an ample supply to drink, and the open trough was 
used for bathing. 
DISPOSAL OF WASTE.—During the Summer the 
droppings are scraped from the floor once a month, 
barreled up and sent to a Milwaukee tannery, where 
they are used to remove the hair from the hides. For 
this purpose they have to be perfectly dry, and in 
Winter there is too much moisture in them. I have 
to divide the receipts from it with the railroad for 
freight, but it nets me 75 or 80 cents a salt barrel full. 
Only that free from all nest material 
is shipped; that taken from the nests 
is principally used for mulching fruit 
trees. Nothing is used for nests but 
tobacco stems, which the cigar factor¬ 
ies save for me free and are glad to 
have taken away. Last Spring cherry 
trees were set between the brace poles 
around the yard. These are now being 
mulched with the old nests, and not a 
tree has died since being set. The ob¬ 
ject in setting them there was to keep 
the cherries safe from cherry-eating 
birds. The pigeons will not touch them. 
CARE OF SQUABS.—Some who read 
this article may not know that pigeons 
pair off for life, unless separated by man. They 
choose their nest and begin business, and year after 
year they can be found in the nest first chosen, un¬ 
less driven away by a stronger couple. The female 
lays her eggs between 4 and 6 P. M., and it is quite 
important that she be not disturbed between those 
hours. After the eggs are laid the female sits upon 
them during the night until about 10 A. M., then the 
male bird relieves her and sits until 4 P. M. This 
continues for 18 days, the period of incubation. Then 
both birds turn their attention to feeding the young, 
which to us humans is a very interest¬ 
ing process. The old bird fills its crop 
with grain, flies to the water trough 
and drinks (drinks like a horse, not 
like a chicken) and flies to the nest to 
feed her young. For the first few days 
this feed is a thin milky substance 
which has been given the name of 
pigeon milk. As the nestling becomes 
older harder grain and fine gravel are 
fed. The old bird opens its bill and 
the nestling inserts its bill into it, and 
with a sort of pumping motion the feed 
is changed from the old bird to the 
young. I have often seen an old bird 
feed two nestlings at one time in this 
manner. In from four to five weeks 
the nestling, now a squab, is ready for 
market. At this age the yellow down 
should be nearly all off the head, and 
the tail feathers will be about an inch 
and a half long. I go through the 
house every Tuesday night and take 
from the nests all the squabs that have 
reached the desired size and fatness, 
and place them in roomy coops well “bedded down” 
with excelsior or hay to keep them clean. The next 
morning their crops are empty and they are taken 
from the coops and killed. The killing is done with 
a small pair of pinchers made of round iron. The 
bird’s neck just back of the head is inserted in the 
pinchers, a little squeeze given and the neck is 
broken. They are dropped on to the floor until life 
is extinct, when they are hung up head down, the feet 
being placed between two headless finishing nails 
driven close together. The bodies are perfectly bled, 
but very little blood is ever seen, because it flows 
EXTERIOR OF SQUAB-RAISING PLANT. Fig. 224. 
