Year: 1908
Type: book
Abstract: This Manual or Handbook on Squabs is written to teach people, beginners mostly, not merely how to raise squabs, but how to conduct a squab and pigeon business successfully.We have found breeders of squabs who knew how to raise them fairly well and took pleasure in doing so, but were weak on the business end of the industry.The fancier, who raises animals because he likes their looks or their actions, or NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK rations, which was a great help to the birds all that time.We use the self-feeder as described by Mr. Rice in his Manual and we find with it the grain is always clean.We have made the feeding question one of the most important of all and find that the best results are obtained by keeping plenty of grain and good clean drinking water before the birds at all times.The drinking fountains used are automatic and are scalded once each week.About once a week we give a teaspoonful of gentian to a gallon of water.We keep fresh water in the flying pens for bathing purpose at all times during the summer, and in the winter we allow our birds to bathe twice a week at -noontime.One thing that is very essential with pigeons is to be kept clean.Our houses and nests are cleaned every week and we also spray the floors, nests and walk with a liquid disinfectant.We have never been troubled with lice, vermin or any disease of any ki i.For nesting material we use tobacco stems, cutting t' m into pieces of about six inches, which we consider th west material for the purpose, and also a safeguard against lice.We feel satisfied with what our birds are doing and have done in the past, so well satisfied, in fact, that we have now under construction buildings that will accommodate nearly one thousand pairs of birds.And the cost of keeping or feeding will not exceed one dollar a year per pair, so that squabs selling from two dollars to three dollars per dozen are sure to leave a good profit."'Looking at the financial showing of the Lunn boys, made in twenty-two months, we find that starting with twelve pairs, for which they paid us thirty dollars, they raised three hundred pairs, worth at the same rate seven hundred and fifty dollars.From this must be deducted the grain which they bought in that period.They start the new year with a fine plant capable of earning a big percentage of profit on its valuation.CHAPTER II.AN EASY START.No Special Form of Building Necessary-Points to Remember -Shelter Adapted to the Climate-How to Use a Building which you Now Have-Squab House and Flying Pen-Lining the Squab House with Nests-Use of Egg Crates-How to Put up the Perches-Difference between the Nest Box, Nest Pan and Nest-How to Tell How Many Pigeons can Occupy a Certain Building-A Large Flock of Pigeons ts Easily Cared for when Split up into Small Flocks-How to Use Your Time to Best Advantage.Do not get the idea that any special form of building is necessary to raise squabs.We will tell you how to put up a structure that will make your work easier for you, and enable you to handle a big flock fast and accurately, but pigeons will work in almost any.place, if it is free from rats, darkness and the musty dampness which goes with darkness.Any building, whether a woodshed, a corn crib, a barn, an outhouse of any description, or even a hog pen, can be made a successful home for pigeons with a little work.The points to remember are these, first, that the building be on fairly level, sunny ground; second, that it be raised AN EASY START 23 the cold winters, but in the South the buildings are more open.Be guided by what you see around you in the place where you live.If the houses used by your friends and neighbors for hens and chickens are tight and warm, make your squab house tight and warm.It would be foolish for you, for example, if you live in Texas, to build a strong, tight, close squab house, for in that latitude, in a henhouse built tight and close, vermin would swarm and harass the chicks, and they would harass the squabs just as fast.* of heavy loss to the best of them.We wish to assure all who
Author: Elmer C. Rice
Language: English
Subfield: Animal Science and Zoology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4298090218