Squabs properly packed may be sent 1,000 miles to market and yet be profitable, but there is hardly a place in this country where a good market can not be found within 200 or 300 miles, and even a thousand miles is not a long distance for an express train.
The trouble will not be so much where to find a market as how to produce squabs enough, once the breeder has been in the business long enough to make a name for himself.
If any breeder sends squabs of good size and color and keeps up the quality regularly, it will not be long before there will be a call for his particular brand of squabs, and after that it will be a question of meeting the demand, for this will grow all the time.
DRESSING AND PACKING SQUABS
Squabs are usually ready to send to the market when four weeks old. Some well-fed ones, or those bred from the best parents, will come to market condition a few days earlier and some a few days later. As a rule, it will be about four weeks from the time they are hatched until they are ready to send to market.
They should be dressed just about the time they are ready to leave the nest, for they are heavier and fatter at that time than they ever will be again.
They should be dressed at the time all the pin feathers are out. They then have a solid feeling about the abdomen and the breast is plump and full. It is very easy to learn the exact time that squabs should be sent to market, and anyone can learn it at once.
Go over the nests in the evening and select the squabs which are to be dressed the next day. These should be put in a coop by themselves, where they can not get anything to eat, so their crops will be empty when they are dressed. If they are sent to market with full crops, the contents of the crop will sour and ferment and spoil the squabs for food purposes in a short time. When dressed with the crops empty and properly iced in warm weather, they will remain fresh until they can be sold in the market.
A "killing rack" should be made before dressing begins. This consists of a frame not quite shoulder high, a 2x4 scantling making a good cross-piece for the top. In the side of this cross-piece drive ten-penny nails about six inches apart, leaving half the length of the nail protruding.