Fig. 216. An attractive squab plant
The most common practice is to give the feed in hoppers, keeping a supply always before the birds. This is done principally because it is the most convenient way, particularly for those who are away from home a great deal. For them hopper feeding is really necessary, but pigeon fanciers seem to agree that when the birds can be fed by throwing on the floor of the loft or the fly, two or three times a day, just about the quantity of food that they need for a meal, they do better and the cost of food is less than by the hopper method. Unlike poultry, pigeons require considerable quantities of salt. The common practice is to keep it before them in the form of lumps of rock salt, one large lump being enough for the birds in a loft of ordinary size. Oyster shell should also be supplied.
Fig. 217. Homer squabs four weeks old
Fig. 218. Carneaux squabs four weeks old
How pigeons rear their young. After a pair of pigeons have completed their nest, the male seems to come at once to the conclusion that home duties demand his mate's constant attention. At the nest he struts about, cooing and coaxing, entering the nest himself, then leaving it and plainly showing his wish that she should take the nest. If she goes away from the nest, he follows her with his head high and his neck inflated. His cooing turns to scolding. He pecks at her and will not give her a moment's peace until she returns to the nest. The hen lays one egg and, after laying it, spends most of her time standing on the nest until the second or third day after, when she lays another egg and immediately begins to sit. She seems to know that if she sat on the first egg before laying the other, one squab would hatch two or three days earlier than the other, and the second squab, being smaller and weaker, would have a hard time. The work of incubation is done mostly by the hen, the cock taking only a minor part. For about an hour in the middle of the morning and again in the middle of the afternoon he relieves her on the nest, giving her a chance to eat, drink, and take some exercise. Counting from the time the last egg was laid, the period of incubation is sixteen or seventeen days.