HAVE YOU TRIED SQUAB-PIE?

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 176, 15 October 1927, Page 27 (Supplement)

HAVE YOU TRIED SQUAB-PIE?

(Written /or THE SUN by

T. D. T.)

SHERE are no stop-work gatherings in the life of a Carneau flock, the motto of which must surely be: “Eat, drink, and grow fat, for tomorrow we die.” The Carneau is the king of the utility pigeon world, and as the life of the young birds, known as “squabs,” rarely extends beyond five weeks, Nature, assisted by man, has provided them with insatiable appetites. Thus it is that though their life is short, it is gastronomieally merry almost from the moment of their emergence from the shell till the hour appointed for the fulfilment of their destiny. Only

those who have tasted a well-reared squab can have any conception of really delicious and nutritious food. Ancient Greeks and Romans professed to have found in skylarks’ tongues the most ravishing of all foods, but if they had once tasted a Carneau squab the happenings of those early days might have been entirely changed. The chief duty of the adult birds is to see that the youngsters are fed and this task appears to be a communal one. Many times each day a cock bird may be seen pumping into the open maws of “squeakers” a mass of partly-digested corn, wheat and peas. It matters not that the youngsters may not belong to him —his chief concern is to see that all squabs are chock-full, and he is not the one to shirk his responsibilities. The male birds also are punctilious in the most important of domestic duties—that of hatching the two eggs that constitute the o£ a

pigeon. On the tick of 11 each morning he reports for nest duty, and from that hour till about 4 in the afternoon he is a sphinx in feathers. Then he is relieved by the hen, who takes the watch continuously till 11 next morning. It is a marvel of co-ordinated organisation, and continues without variation for the 17 days required to hatch the eggs. Then begins a new routine, in which incessant feeding of their own youngsters is alternated with the stuffing of the crops of any stray birds that look as though they need a few extra grains of food. At the end of five weeks the squabs should weigh about one and a-quarter pounds, the ideal size for the table,

and the loft sees them no more. But the parent birds must carry on the good work, and here is introduced something of comedy. After about eight weeks of close attention to maternal duties the hen bird decides to call it a day, and mingles with the lads and lasses of the loft, in their endless comings and goings. But this divagation from the rules of the loft i will not be tolerated by her mate, who plays tag on her movements with such : persistence that in order to obtain a j little rest she at last retreats to the i kerosene-tin bungalow that does ex- ] cellent duty as a nesting-place. And j here she commences once more her ordained task of contributing to the population of the loft. A pair of stock birds will produce on an average, six pairs of squabs a year for six years. It is possible, of course, to increase the size and weight of squabs by systematic selection, but it has been found that the extra cost

o£ producing a 21b. bird is not warranted by the demand, except in very large cities. In Melbourne and Sydney there are lofts containing from 2,000 to 3,000 birds, and there is in those cities an unsatisfied demand for all the squabs the lofts can supply. A remarkable fact about the Carneau is that like does not always produce like. Carneaus are red in colour, with a “splash” of white, but their offspring vary, some being pure white, some grey, others blue-black and black and white, while not infrequently the reversion is to an almost pure homer type. But whatever the colour, they all have the delicious flavour of the Carneau.

The management of a loft of utility pigeons is not at all simple. Incessant care has to be exercised in keeping the houses and “runs” scrupulously clean, and every bird has to be “ringed” and his or her birthday recorded in special books. This is to ensure that at any given moment the i owner of the loft can ascertain how j many squabs have reached the re- ; quired age for the market. Then i there is the work of judicious mating, i and the elimination of culls, all of ' which calls for constant watchful* | ness. The demand for squabs is growing steadily. Pound for pound, a squab i is said to be infinitey superior to the | best poultry, but because of the much greater care needed in the managej ment of a pigeon loft, compared with : poultry, there is not likely, for many : years at least, to be a glut in the squab i market*