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COPYRIGHT 1914 BY CARL DARE
Profitable
Squab Breeding
By CARL DARE
A complete practical guide for the
beginner as well as the experienced
breeder.
Reliable information gleaned from
the experience of a lifetime in the
work.
Full instructions on all points from
the installation of the plant to the
marketing of the product.
Des Moines, Iowa
1914
[Illustration: CARL DARE
Des Moines, Iowa, October 1, 1914.]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Profits of Squab Raising--Will It Pay?
CHAPTER II
Best Breeds for Squabbing--The Kind to Buy
CHAPTER III
The Construction of Houses--Pigeon House Plans--Nests--Water
Fountains--Bathing Dishes--Keeping House in Sanitary Condition
CHAPTER IV
Feeds and Feeding--Breeding Habits
CHAPTER V
Increasing the Flock--Selecting Future Breeders--Banding--Mating
CHAPTER VI
Making a Market--Preparing Squabs for Market
CHAPTER VII
Diseases of Pigeons
CHAPTER VIII
Miscellaneous Information--Catching Mated Pairs
[Illustration: A Typical Mammoth Homer. The Most Profitable for Squab
Raising.]
INTRODUCTORY PREFACE
No business has had such a wonderful growth within the last few years as
the raising of squabs for market. Only a few years ago the use of squabs
for food was confined to a few of the most wealthy families. Game was
plentiful and cheap and those who were not very well off preferred quail
and other game birds to paying the high prices asked for the few squabs
which were sent to market.
Gradually the demand for squabs grew larger, as more people became
acquainted with their delicacy and good qualities as food, and this led
to larger numbers being produced. Soon all the larger markets furnished
squabs and then the smaller ones began to supply them and now many a
comparatively small market is not complete without squabs as a part of
the supplies of food kept on hand or provided on order.
Game birds have become scarce and high-priced, and squabs have taken
their place in such a manner that the demand for game is not so large as
it was, while the demand for squabs continually increases.
The rearing of squabs for market is immensely profitable as well as
easy. Squab-raising can be conducted on a scale large enough to make it
worth while in the back yard of a town lot, or it can be conducted on a
scale large enough to require several acres with equal profit on every
dollar invested in the business.
Squab-breeding is a business which is profitable when conducted as a
side line on a small space and all the work may be done by women,
children, or those who are not strong enough for the more laborious
occupations of life. At the same time it is a business which men of
affairs need not hesitate to undertake as there are squab farms on which
pigeons are kept by tens of thousands with great profit.
The squab business may be commenced with small capital and rapidly
increased from the increase of the flock, as each pair of breeding birds
will produce at least twelve in a year so the increase is very rapid.
So great has the demand for a book which would give all the details of
the business of squab-raising become, that we have felt compelled to
publish this book. It is written to teach people, beginners mostly, not
merely how to raise squabs, but how to conduct a squab and pigeon
business successfully. We have found breeders of squabs who knew how to
raise them fairly well and took pleasure in doing so, but were weak on
the business end of the industry. The fancier, who raises animals
because he likes their looks or their actions, or because he hopes to
beat some other fancier at an exhibition, is not the man for whom we
have written this book. We have developed utility pigeons and the
squabbing industry solely because they are staples, salable in any
market at a remunerative price. The success of squabs as we handle them
depends on their earning capacity. They are a matter of business. Our
development of squabs is based on the fact that they are good eating,
that people now are in the habit of asking for and eating them, and
there is a large traffic in them which may be pushed to an enormous
extent without weakening either the market or the price. If, as happens
in this case, pigeons are a beautiful pet stock as well as money makers
so much the better. It is just as easy to pet a practical animal as an
impractical animal, and much more satisfying.
This book is the latest and most comprehensive work we have done, giving
the results of our experience as fully and as accurately as we can
present the subject. It is intended as an answer to the hundreds of
letters we receive, and we have tried to cover every point which a
beginner or an expert needs to know. It has been our experience in
handling this subject and bringing it home to people that the little
points are the ones on which they most quickly go astray, and on which
they wish the fullest information. After they have a fair start, they
are able to think out their operations for themselves. Accordingly we
have covered every point in this book in simple language and if the
details in some places appear too commonplace, remember that we have
erred on the side of plainness.
It has surprised a great many people to learn that pigeons are such a
staple and workable article. They have been handled by the old methods
for years without their great utility value being made plain. When we
first learned about squabs, we were struck by the impressive fact that
here was something which grew to market size in the incredibly short
period of four weeks and then was marketed readily at a good profit. The
spread of that knowledge will make money for you. Show your neighbors
the birds; you tell them the facts, and perhaps give them a squab to
eat, then you will find a quick call for all the live breeders you can
supply.
We have tried to answer all the questions which a beginner would ask and
give all the details so plainly that any one can begin breeding pigeons
and raising squabs with success. The instructions given are based on
actual experience in raising squabs and we have tried to write so
plainly that any one can understand just how to begin and continue in
the business.
Those who follow the instructions given may look forward with confidence
to a successful career as pigeon-breeders provided they begin with the
right kind of breeding stock, the kind which produces heavy-weight,
plump, white-fleshed squabs.
CARL DARE.
Des Moines, Iowa, October 15, 1914.
[Illustration: A Pair of Beautiful Blue Bar Mammoth Homers, Straight
American Bred.]
CHAPTER I
PROFITS OF SQUAB RAISING--WILL IT PAY?
In first considering squab breeding the beginner always asks, "Will It
Pay Me to Raise Squabs?" It is well to consider this phase of any
business before making very much of an investment.
The squab business is comparatively new in this country although it has
already reached such proportions that there can not be any doubt but it
is the most profitable and pleasant business in which any one may
engage. Under the methods outlined in this book there is no chance for a
conscientious worker to fail.
This country is filled with plants large and small and I have yet to
find a plant that is not paying a handsome profit unless there be
something wrong with the stock or methods employed. I have visited the
great squab plants of California where thousands upon thousands of birds
are left to fly at will and nest in open boxes protected only from the
sun, and here I find that the squabs are paying a fine return on the
investment and thousands of tourists visit these large plants annually
and pay an admission fee of fifty cents each so that the revenue from
this source is considerable.
I have visited also the great squab district in South Jersey where the
squabs are produced for the large cities of the East; the plants also in
Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania, and I find that on the best
equipped and best paying plants the methods employed are practically
identical with those outlined in this book. The fact that experienced
breeders in such widely separated sections of the country have adopted
almost identical methods is certainly proof that we have the right idea
and that the advice we give here to the beginner will be well worth
while.
The largest plants in the country are in the far East and far West as
indicated, but I believe there is no one other state that has so many
up-to-date plants as the state of Iowa. You will find a paying squab
farm in nearly every city of this state, and in some of them there are
two or three large and up-to-date, well equipped plants. In one little
town in the northern part of the state there is a plant where over
fifteen thousand breeders are kept right along. The proprietor of this
plant has told me that when he began with a few pairs of Homers of
indiscriminate breeding he had hardly enough funds to pay for the birds
and their feed for the first few months. He now owns the large plant of
several thousand birds of the purest stock with suitable buildings, and
a beautiful home and drives an up-to-date seven-passenger auto-mobile.
His son and daughter are both attending a university in the East and
every cent of his money has been made with pigeons. If his were the only
case of such kind there would still be proof enough of the profits in
the squab business to justify careful consideration by anyone, but I
personally know of thousands of others who have made a success, some of
them on a larger scale, and there can no longer be any doubt of the
opportunity of making money in this business.
THE PROFITS OF SQUAB RAISING
In another place in this book we have shown how easy it is to arrange a
place in which to keep squabs. Hundreds of people are so situated that
they could raise squabs who could not possibly take care of a flock of
chickens, because they lack both time and space.
In raising squabs the cost of attendance is reduced to the minimum.
There are no eggs to be gathered, no setting hens or incubators to be
looked after, no young birds to be fed and cared for. The pigeon-breeder
simply puts his birds in the loft, feeds and waters them and they build
their own nests and feed their young.
The space that would be needed by a dozen hens will comfortably keep
fifty or a hundred pairs of pigeons, and the revenue from a pair of
pigeons in a year is about the same as from a good laying hen.
The squab-breeder gets his money in four weeks, while the man who raises
chickens must wait at least twelve weeks before he can sell his birds.
The manure from a loft of pigeons can be sold as a garden fertilizer for
enough to pay for the cost of feeding the birds. In many cities and
towns florists consider pigeon manure the best fertilizer they can get
for flowers and garden crops and large tanneries use tons of it in
tanning leather. It usually sells for 50 cents a bushel in town for
fertilizing lawns, flower and vegetable gardens.
It will cost just about $1.00 to keep a pair of pigeons one year. When
the writer visited the great squab farms of South Jersey, he
particularly inquired about the cost of feeding a pair of pigeons one
year. In that country most of the grain is shipped from the West and
from Canada. The wheat comes from New York, Ohio, or states further
west, the kaffir corn mostly comes from Kansas and the hemp seed from
Kentucky. The peas come from Canada. All these grains are sold with the
freight added to the initial price and the feed dealer's profit, of
course. In the Mid-West the freight charges would be much smaller than
they are in the East, so the cost of keeping a pair of pigeons would be
considerably reduced.
In the South Jersey squab district we found that the cost of keeping a
pair of breeding Homers one year ranges from $1.10 to $1.25 a year. In
other sections of the country the cost runs as low as 85 cents per pair.
If a certain loft contains pigeons of extra breeding qualities, it will
cost more for feed, as the old birds have more squabs to feed than would
be the case where less productive birds were kept.
It should be understood that when we give the cost of keeping a pair of
breeding pigeons the cost of raising their squabs is included. That is
when we say it costs about $1.00 to keep a pair of pigeons a year, we
mean it will cost this amount to keep the pair and all the squabs they
produce in a year.
[Illustration: Fig. 1. A Handy, Home-made Net For Catching the Birds.]