If I were a boy or a girl to-day there is nothing I should so much like to do as to raise pigeons. Not that I think it an easy job. (Wouldn't you almost as soon work as to look for an easy job, anyhow?) There are lots of disappointments, discouragements, and hard labour about pigeon rearing. But young folks with hobbies like this are getting more fun out of life than the idle ones.
Pigeons are hardy, easily tamed, prolific, and can be made to pay their own way. It would be impossible to associate with them, care for them, learn their nature and habits, without becoming thoroughly interested in them. No pets could be more gentle, more beautiful, more docile than pigeons. Success in rearing them will not be immediate, but will come with experience.
The business of raising fancy pigeons for pets is quite distinct from squab raising, treated in the chapter on poultry, and is far more likely to interest boys and girls. If you were to go to a big poultry show you would be bewildered at the number of breeds of fancy pigeons. The pouters, the tumblers, the barbs, the dragoons, nuns, helmets, the fantails, and carriers are all there in endless variety. What you like will be different from what I like, probably, so it is not easy to recommend. Beginners would do well to choose some one variety and try their hand at that before investing very extensively. The flying tumbler is recommended by many good authorities. These are not difficult to breed, are small eaters, do not need to be caged continually, and although they are to be had in nearly all the colours of the rainbow they are not very expensive. It is not good economy to buy cheap stock, in anything. Though by getting good ones you must start with a single pair, it is the best economy. Your increase will be very much more valuable. You should ask the breeder for a written guarantee that the pigeons are as represented, healthy, young, mated stock. If he does not care to give the guarantee, I should not consider him reliable.
Net for capturing pigeons
Pigeons are not much influenced by elaborate dovecotes. They are quite as happy living the simple life in a dry-goods box, provided it contains the conveniences they require, and is placed where the light will be plentiful, the air pure, and the roof rain proof. City boys and girls need not sigh and give up the idea because they have no place for pigeons. The attic or the roof serves them just as well as the barn yard, perhaps better, as mice and rats are less likely to disturb them on housetops. Every precaution should be taken however against these vermin. Cracks, doors and ventilators should be covered with fine wire netting. Even the entrances, holes six inches high by four in width, should be protected by tin guards which rats and mice cannot creep over.
Pigeon roost
Each pair of pigeons will need two nesting compartments. A good kind is described in Farmers' Bulletin No. 177, and is constructed as follows: Inch boards, twelve inches wide, with parallel cross cleats nailed on nine inches apart, are set upright full twelve inches apart against one wall, and securely fastened at top and bottom. Cut twelve-inch squares of inch boards for the bottoms of the nest boxes. It is easy to see how convenient these sliding bottoms will be to clean. Provide small earthenware dishes as nests, with a foundation of tobacco stems, to discourage lice. The birds will build nests of straw above the tobacco stems, the male bringing the material which the female arranges to suit her ideas of house furnishing. Some growers use sawdust in the nest. If your pigeons are allowed their liberty with no shelter save the pigeon loft, perches will be needed inside. As the pigeon's feet are formed for perching on flat surfaces instead of on rounded branches like many of their feathered relatives, you should provide what suits their needs. A good form of perch is made as follows. Cut half-inch, dressed material four or five inches wide into five or six-inch lengths. Nail together two of these pieces in v-shape. This can be nailed to a square foundation piece and hung angle up on the wall of the loft. The slanting sides afford no lodging for droppings and as only one bird at a time can perch on so small a place, quarrelling is avoided. Iron brackets with perches attached are also used.
Two nest dishes are provided for each pair, as very often the hen will lay a second pair of eggs before the earliest young ones are ready to leave the nest. The male pigeon is untiring in his devotion to the young and their mother, taking his turn on the nest regularly during the seventeen days of incubation, doing his share of the work, and even beating his wife if she shows any disposition to slight her duties.