Cleanliness is one of the first and most important considerations, the want of it in a dove-cote will soon render the place a nuisance not to be approached, and the birds, both young and old, will be so covered with vermin, and besmeared with their own excrement, that they can enjoy no health or comfort, and mortality is often so induced. Ours were cleaned daily; thoroughly once a week, a tub standing at hand for the reception of their dung, the floor covered with sifted gravel, often renewed. Pigeons are exceedingly fond of water, and having a prescience of rain, will wait its coming until late in the evening, upon the house-top, spreading their wings to receive the refreshing shower. When they are confined in a room, they should be allowed a wide pan of water, to be often renewed, as a bath, which cools, refreshes and assists them to keep their bodies clear of vermin. In the attendance upon pigeons, caution is necessary with respect to their fighting, to which they are more prone than might be expected, often to the destruction of eggs or young, or driving the weakest away.
The common barrel dove-cote needs no description, at the same time it is adapted to every situation in which it is desirable to keep pigeons for ordinary use. To return to the room, or loft; the shelves should be placed sufficiently high, for security against vermin, a small ladder being a necessary appendage. The usual breadth of the shelves is about twenty inches, with the allowance of eighteen between shelf and shelf, which will be sufficient not to incommode the tallest pigeons. Partitions between the shelves may be fixed at the distance of about three feet, making a blind, by a board nailed against the front of each partition, whence there will be two nests in the compass of every three feet, so that the pigeons will sit in privacy, and not liable to be disturbed. Or a partition may be fixed between each nest;—a good plan, which prevents the young from running to the hen, sitting over fresh eggs, and perhaps occasioning her to cool and addle them, for when the young are about a fortnight or three weeks old, a good hen will leave them to the care of the cock and lay again.
Some prefer breeding-holes entirely open in front, for the greater convenience in cleaning the nests; but it is from those that the squabs are likely to fall, thence a step of sufficient height is preferable. The tame pigeon seldom taking the trouble to make a nest, it is better to give her one of hay, which prevents her eggs from rolling. Or a straw basket, or unglazed earthen pan, may be placed in every nest, apportioned to the size of the pigeons you breed. A pan of three inches high, eight inches over the top, and sloping to the bottom like a basin, will be of sufficient size for a tumbler, or a small pigeon, whilst one of double those dimensions will be required for a large runt. A brick should always be placed in contiguity to the pan, to enable the cock and hen to alight with greater safety upon the eggs.
The pigeon-trap on the house-top is the well-known contrivance of those London rascals, who lie in wait, as has been said, to entrap the property of others. A trap of another description, and for a very different purpose, is sometimes used; it is an area, on the outside of a building, for the purpose of confining in the air valuable breeds of pigeons which cannot be trusted to flight. Some are erected to the extent of twenty yards long and ten yards in width, with shelves on every side for the perching of the pigeons; thus they are constantly exercised in the air, retiring at their pleasure to the room or loft within.
Very convenient baskets are now made of the cradle form, with partitions, or separate apartments. They serve for the carriage of pigeons for matching, or putting them up to fatten, or for any of the usual purposes. I have seen them lately, in the basket-shops on the Greenwich road, two or three miles from London.
Food and water should be given in such a way as to be as little as possible contaminated with the excrement, or any other impurity. Our pigeons having been constantly attended, we have never found the need of any other convenience than earthen pans; but there have been ingenious inventions for this purpose, of which the meat-box and water-bottle following are specimens. The meat-box is formed in the shape of a hopper, covered at the top to keep clean the grain, which descends into a square shallow box. Some fence this with rails or holes on each side, to keep the grain from being scattered over; others leave it quite open that the young pigeons may the more easily find their food.
The water-bottle is a large glass bottle, with a long neck, holding from one to five gallons, its belly shaped like an egg, so that the pigeons may not light and dung upon it. It is placed upon a stand or three-footed stool, made hollow above, to receive the belly of the bottle, and let the mouth into a small pan beneath: the water will so gradually descend out of the mouth of the bottle as the pigeons drink, and be sweet and clean, and always stop when the surface reaches the mouth of the bottle.