When breeding straight Homers, one can reasonably expect 80 or 90 per cent which will run 8 pounds or over to the dozen. About two-thirds of the remainder will run close to 8 pounds to the dozen and one-third will be classed among the lowest quality.
When 10-pound squabs are selling for $6 a dozen, a lot weighing more than 10 pounds to the dozen will bring a premium of from 50 cents a dozen up; but as a rule the most profitable squabs are the 8- and 10-pounders.
In picking squabs, some leave them hanging where they are killed, while others take them in the hand. The weight of practice is in favor of holding them in the hand.
NUMBERS OF SQUABS TO THE PAIR
Some enthusiastic or dishonest sellers of breeding pigeons talk about their birds producing nine or ten pairs of squabs each year. There are occasional pairs of very select birds which will do this, but they cannot be bought at any reasonable price. No pair of birds will raise two squabs every time they hatch, for accidents will happen, and one squab or both, in some brooding periods, will die. Occasionally an egg will be broken, and once in a while an egg will prove infertile. These accidents, which happen in the best cared-for lofts, come to every pigeon-breeder.
If a large loft of pigeons average six pairs of pigeons a year, it will do as much as can be expected of it. More will fall below that than run above it, because there are more careless pigeon-breeders than careful ones.
Say, for the sake of a basis from which to arrange, that a loft of a good strain of Homers, properly housed and fed, will produce an average of six pairs of squabs each year. As pigeons breed ten months in the year, this average should be easily made. This would be an even dozen squabs for each pair of pigeons in the loft. These we will put at the very low price of $3 a dozen, a price they will bring in a country town of any size, and we have $3 as the gross returns from a pair of fair breeding Homers.
Deducting from this the highest estimated prices for the feed of a pair of pigeons, we have $1.75 left. This will be the returns from which the pigeon-breeder must get his profits. The manure will pay well for the labor of feeding the birds, so this item is eliminated from the bill of cost.
It will not cost more than 25 cents per pair to pay for the other labor of caring for a loft of pigeons where any number above 100 pairs are kept. The owner of such a loft could do all the work before working hours in the morning and after hours in the evening so the birds would not interfere with his regular work.
The cost of ice, the cost of killing and picking the birds, and the cost of packages may be put at 25 cents a dozen, which is a very liberal estimate. This leaves $1.25 clear profit, after paying all expenses and paying the owner for the time he puts in feeding his birds, this work having been done when he would otherwise have been idle or not earning money.