36 
FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY XC RAW GE: 

CARRIER PIGEONS—CON STRUCTING A 
BREEDING LOFT. 
I HAVE been several times requested to give my ideas 
with respect to the construction of a loft for breeding Car- 
riers, and thinking they may be of service to your readers I 
forward them to you. 
I believe non-success in breeding this noble variety of 
Pigeon is chiefly owing to several pairs being crowded 
together in a small space, the result being a great amount of 
damage to the adult birds by fighting—so frequently the 
cause of wing disease and canker—and the loss of numbers 
of eggs and young ones in the nest. Carriers are a prolific 
variety, and.a good proportion of young birds may easily be 
reared. By adopting the plan I recommend, these misfor- 
tunes are entirely avoided, and, so far as I have myself 
practiced it, I found it to answer remarkably well. 
The building may be erected at a very moderate cost. 
The erection is like an ordinary shed. <A wall 9 or 10 feet 
high, with a south aspect, will answer for the back. The 
front of the shed should be 6 feet high, which allows of a 
8-feet fall in the roof to carry off wet. The roof should 
be boarded flat with 1-inch deals (I mean of course with 
the above-mentioned inclination), felted, well tarred, and 
spouted. The ends of the shed, and the back, if there is no 
wall to work on, should be double-boarded, leaving about 3 
inches between the inner and outer boards, and the vacancy 
well filled with sawdust. Such walls retain a more even 
temperature than brick or stone, being neither so cold in 
winter nor so hot in summer, and are besides, less expensive. 
In width the loft may be 12 or 14 feet; the front boarded- 
up from the ground 8 feet high, the remainder to the roof 
wire netting. Inside under the roof shutters should hang 
on hinges, to fall down and cover the wire front during the 
cold nights, and at other times when necessary. When out 
of use they swing up and lie flat to the roof, where they are 
fastened, and are then quite out of the way. 
At the back of the loft (there is no limit to the length 
except in the number of breeding pens required), is a plat- 
form 4 feet in width, half way between the floor and roof, 
to form the bottom of the pens. Thin iron rods, 1 inch 
apart, running from the platform up to the roof, form the 
front of the pens, each pen being 4 or 5 feet long (the longer 
the better) furnished with door, nest-box, &c. The loft at 
the length of every three pens should be divided, so that 
the occupants of every three pens may have their flight, 
bath, &c., in the area in front in turns. Thus the pairs are 
always separate, and breed undisturbed. Under these three 
breeding pens, which constitute one section of the loft, the 
front from the outer edge of the platform to the ground 
should be wired, with a door, and fitted with perches; so 
that will form a most convenient place to draft the young 
ones into as they are fit to leave their parents. As there 
will be two or three such compartments in a loft of any 
pretensions, the sexes can be separated when desired. In 
this arrangement the birds are always under command, and 
easily caught when required. 
The finish of such a building is, of course, a matter of 
taste and outlay. The exterior may be planed and painted, 
or only in the rough and tarred, the inside in either case 
being well lime-washed annually, at the commencement and 
close of the breeding season.—W. Massey, in Journal of 
Horticulture. 
.ingly wide distribution of many of our best breeds. 

(For Fanciers’ Journal.) 
GOOD STOCK v. MONGRELS. 
‘‘ Don’r you find your big chickens more sickly than the 
dunghills?’’ and “‘ Don’t they eat more than the common 
fowls?’? These are the two main questions asked and urged 
against improved stock in fowls. My answer has been, 
‘¢No, not with the same attention.’? Dunghills will eat 
more and lay less than any of the improved breeds of the 
same size if confined to small pens, as improved breeds usu- 
ally are, with little range and less variety of food. 
Brahmas and Cochins are liberal feeders, I admit. But 
in order to preserve their purity, and prevent admixture of 
dunghill blood, most of us are compelled to confine the hens 
particularly to small yards and close quarters, and thus 
having prevented the gratification of their natural desire to 
gather their own food, and deprived them of health-giving 
exercise, we naturally must supply the deficiency by feeding 
properly, and look for a smaller supply of eggs, and a less 
healthy and perfect development. Could farmers fairly 
estimate the amount of food consumed by an ordinary barn- 
yard fowl, in the shape of grubs, worms, and grain, it 
would astound them, particularly if they looked upon this 
as what might have been had grain alone been substituted 
for it. 
All stock will pay for extra care, and particularly is this 
true of blooded or improved stock. Farmers in the main 
regard poultry, and particularly chickens, as a great nuisance, 
and were it not for the good sense of their good wives, it is 
hard to tell what would become of the pets. The great 
wonder, under existing circumstances, and the lack of care 
in the treatment of fowls is, that chickens pay expenses at 
all. To those of us who love our pets, and give them proper 
attention, the matter is perfectly plain that they do pay, and 
that improved stock pays better than common fowls, from 
the fact that we are able to secure much higher prices for 
even ordinary specimens. Of course the outlay in the be- 
ginning is greater, and this is probably the greatest objec- 
tion which the advocates of common stock find to the intro- 
duction of that which is blooded. 
In general, however, a single pair, or a trio, will, with 
economical management, be sufficient to give one a fine stock 
of fowls to begin with the second season, and enough may 
be made by selling the surplus stock to neighbors to pay the 
cost of the original trio. Neighbors can always be found 
who will be ready to pay at least twice as much for the sur- 
plus fowls as for ordinary fowls. Besides, a double good 
will be done in the way of giving one a start, and at the 
same time distributing good stock, and creating an interest 
in the community. 
It is with much satisfaction that one notices the increas- 
Of 
course the most beautiful, and the most highly and perfectly 
developed birds will remain in the hands of the fanciers, 
because these, in the main, are the only ones who thoroughly 
understand the principles of mating and breeding to produce 
beautiful birds. But so far as the utility of the fowls is con- 
cerned—and this, after all; is the main item of interest to 
the general poultry raiser—it need not and will not be 
limited to fanciers alone. No one will be more pleased in 
fact than the fancier to have a general and wide-spread 
interest in poultry developed among all classes of poultry. 
breeders, A. N. R. 
