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Show POE1M MAKING MONEY WITH SQUABS Largest Pigeon Farm In World Turns Out 250,000 Birds Every Year Much Work Required. Travelers approaching Los Angeles from the north are astonished sometimes some-times at seeing from the car windows win-dows flocks of pigeons numbering many thousands just on the outskirts of the Angel City. These belong to the world's largest pigeon farm, owned own-ed by T. R. Johnson, and Justly considered one of the show place Df southern California. Merely as a curiosity it ranks with the alligator farm, the numerous ostrich farms and similar freak establishments. The pigeon farm consists of about eight acres of sandy, gravelly land along the bed of the Los Angeles river a "river" only by courtesy during dur-ing the long, dry summer months, Money Makers. when it becomes practically a mere rivulet The farm was established about ten years ago on a comparatively compara-tively small scale; but the venture proved so profitable that the owner developed the business along lines such as have marked the growth of other great modern Industries, until he claims to now have more than 100,000 fully grown pigeons in his establishment, not to mention tens of thousands of squabs. Any one questioning ques-tioning the accuracy of the figures has the privLege of counting. As a mat. ter of fact, the estimate probably is many thousands below the actual number. The object of this vast pigeon breeding breed-ing establishment is the production of squabs. At the present time aboul 40 dozen squabs are killed and sent to market every day; but a little latei in the season the daily output will bs much greater, so that the annual squab crop from this one establish, ment Is about 250,000. These sell at anywhere from $2.50 up to $4 per dozen (depending upon the time of year), and it is evident that the income in-come from the mammoth pigeon farm foots up to a very tidy sum annually. However, this is not all "velvet" by any means. The birds consume between be-tween two and three tons of grain every day and the labor of looking after them, keeping the buildings clean and sanitary, and killing and preparing the squabs for market is not a trifling matter. |