The cote owner examined the pigeon very carefully and put it into one of the wire cages.
“It will be all right in a few days,” he said. “Then I’ll make one more test. If the bird fails another time, out it goes.”
The pigeon cote had been divided into sections set apart by mesh wire fence. Old birds were separated from young ones. Those that were sick were housed in a special pen.
Mr. Green filled the water pans and placed grain in long feeding troughs. The birds could not crowd each other because a six-inch space was provided for each one.
Adjoining the cote was an exercise cage. The building itself was set in an open place, facing south so that more sunshine would filter in.
Mr. Green told the Brownies that in training pigeons one had to be very patient.
“Food is the key to success,” he declared. “A pigeon always will return to the place where it has been fed.”
The cote owner explained that in training racers he began by whistling for the birds just before he fed them.
After a week, he would place the pigeon on a landing platform outside the loft. When another training period had elapsed, he would start leaving the birds a short distance away but in view of the loft.
“They’ll always return to the landing platform in search of food,” Mr. Green said. “The first real test comes when I take the pigeons in a basket some distance away and release them in a group. After that test, I try them singly at one mile, then five and perhaps ten miles. The pigeon you girls returned failed both the five and the ten-mile test.”