Vol LXIII No. 2854. NEW YORK, OCTOBER 8, 1904. 
A MICHIGAN WOMAN AND SQUABS. 
The Story of a Success. 
HOME WORK.—The young woman daughter in a 
farm home who for reasons of health or because her 
parents need her must stay with them often finds her 
self trying to solve a perplexing problem. Her sister 
teaches. Her cousin practices medicine. Her chum 
marries and is mistress of a home of her own. The in¬ 
stinct is as strong in her as in them to do something 
distinctively her own. She casts up accounts and finds 
part of the time her own and many of the resources of 
the farm at her disposal. Her parents will welcome her 
undertaking something for herself if she can still remain 
with them. It will augment her content and develop 
self-reliance and independence of thought and action. 
All the better for her physically if she decides on a par¬ 
tially outdoor occupation. Not infrequently the result 
is the young woman brings an unusual occupation into 
successful operation under very usual conditions. If the 
business is a bene¬ 
ficial one, she does 
pioneer service by 
introducing it. It 
has taken agricul¬ 
tural prophets to 
break up the farm 
traditions of the 
past. It has taken 
leaders with vis¬ 
ions of the future 
to induce men to 
raise beans and 
sugar beets and 
support dairies in¬ 
stead of sowing 
wheat year after 
year. So, too, the 
woman on the 
farm who branches' 
off from the beaten 
track of butter¬ 
making and chick¬ 
en raising deserves 
credit if she points 
out one more 
choice to other 
women. 
A START 
WITH PIGEONS. 
— Something o f 
this sort Miss Hat¬ 
tie Fellows has 
done in building a 
pigeon loft at her 
home in Washtenaw Co., Michigan. It affords her in¬ 
teresting work, light enough for her to do herself, gives 
comfortable profits, and demonstrates another home 
occupation for the woman on the farm. Miss Fellows 
shows herself an idealist of a practical type, for when 
she showed me her birds her first exclamation was: 
“You can’t care for pigeons without work. Anyone 
who thinks they will keep themselves and yield hand¬ 
some returns is mistaken. Still. . it isn’t hard work. 
Only it must be regular and judicious. I find it lighter 
and far more preferable than the broiler business I did 
before I knew about raising squabs.” 
“No two birds are alike,” she continued, “and if you 
begin with a large flock you will have trouble, especially 
if they are unmated.” 
“You do not raise squabs for market?” I interrupted, 
noticing the small house and fly her pigeons were 
quartered in. 
“No; I do not, but I mean to as soon as I can get 
enough birds to keep. So far I have had so many calls 
for young stock for breeding purposes that 1 have not 
got to the squab business myself.” 
“Nothing but the best stock pays. It is true, squabs 
now supply in our large markets the places vacated by 
native pigeons, partridges and grouse, but the domestic 
bird must fill requirements of size, hardiness and quick 
development never made upon game birds.” 
BREEDS AND CARE.—The Homers are agreed to 
be the best commercial variety of pigeon. They raise 
a greater number of young in a year than any other and 
the cold weather does not affect their laying. They are 
plump and large, active, and quiet in disposition. Miss 
Fellows’s birds arc all carefully selected Homers, a 
few of them being imported from Belgium. She does 
not wish any other kind. But the desirable breeding 
qualities her loft has manifested are no doubt also 
largely due to her constant study of individual charac¬ 
teristics and the accurate records kept of everything that 
goes on in the pigeon house. Every dove is marked 
wbh a band label and is thus easily traced if it gets out 
of place. It can also be mated according to the discre¬ 
tion of the owner, whose eye is ever on the outlook 
for opportunities to develop strong points in her young 
birds. It is easy to be seen that success will not ensue 
in this business, any more than in any other, if an 
attempt is made to begin on a wholesale plan without 
paying very much attention to details. The perfection 
of a piece of life of any kind is an art that requires 
delicate skill and the best of judgment followed up by 
incessant care. One really wishes to be at liberty to 
raise pigeons oneself when an enthusiast tells you the 
many interesting facts about them that lift the work 
something above the manual act of feeding and caring 
for them. 
“As a rule doves mate for life,” said Miss Fellows; 
“therefore you see how very important it is that they be 
well mated. This is my mating coop. When a couple 
show that they are ready to nest by picking up stems 
and straws, they are taken out of this coop and put in 
the room with the others and two nests provided for 
them. You see the nests are shallow disks, one in each 
pigeon hole of this compartment rack. Two eggs only 
are laid in a nest. As soon as the little ones are two 
weeks old, another nest is built and eggs are laid in it. 
The parents both assist in the nest building, in brooding 
the eggs and in feeding of the young. Nature provides 
that at the time of hatching the food in the crops of the 
parents turns to thickened milk and upon this the young¬ 
sters feed. A pigeon will eat a half bushel of grain a 
year at a cost not to exceed 60 cents. The mother bird 
sits upon the nest at night, but at ten in the morning 
the male relieves her and remains til! late in the after¬ 
noon. Eight pairs of young a year are considered <i 
very good average. If sold for squabs the nestlings 
should be ready be ready in 28 days. They bring ail 
the way from $2.50 to $4.50 per dozen according to mar¬ 
ket and quality. If the homing pigeons are transferred 
to a new place after they are two months old they can 
be liberated with safety only in a wire fly. Otherwise 
instinct will lead them to return to their earliest loft.” 
RESULTS.—This young woman began her pigeon 
operations on her father’s farm with 24 birds, which she 
bought of a reliable dealer who was going out of the 
business. By other purchases and careful mating she 
now has a flock of 
200 beautiful birds. 
But besides this, 
during the three 
years since she be 
gan, she has sold 
and shipped young 
birds of their rais¬ 
ing to the nice lit¬ 
tle trade that her 
judicious manage¬ 
ment of the loft 
has brought. Birds 
one to two months 
old sell for $1 to 
$2.50 a pair, and 
she values her best 
flyers as high as 
$15 per pair. She 
first used the peak 
of a barn for her 
loft, making it 
warm and dry with 
building paper. 
Now she has a 
compact little 
house, 16x24 feet, 
with a fly outside 
that is 12x24 feet 
and 14 feet high. 
There is store 
room in her house 
at the rear of the 
pigeon room. It is 
safe to say that 
her previous experience with chickens and the fact that 
she is an experienced stock breeder’s daughter were the 
best elements of the capital she put into this enterprise. 
The “dovecote” of a woman is proverbially dainty and 
neat and even a pigeon loft for commercial purposes 
must be no exception. Scrupulously clean it must he. 
The bill of fare of its occupants must be varied and 
good according to best known feeding qualities of differ¬ 
ent grains. Fresh water and sand are essential. All the 
details of care and feeding are mentioned in Farmers’ 
Bulletin No. 177, published by the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture, and all of them were carefully adhered to 
in the loft I visited. Add to this a conscientious aim to 
make the birds do their very best, and the result is a 
fascination for the work that makes it akin to a “pro¬ 
fession.” j. b. 
Michigan. 
R. N.-Y.—The range of prices given above, $2.50 to 
$4.50 per dozen, is a little high for the New York whole¬ 
sale market, $1.50 to $2.75 covering most of the year. 
There are special lines, however, where these figures are 
much exceeded, but this exceptional demand is small. 
VIEW OF MICHIGAN WOMAN’S “DOVECOTE.” Fig. 322. 
