50 + YEARS OF BREEDING ROLLERS
Just being a little more beautiful . ( OK a lot more )I have always mated a light colored bird with a darker colored bird, usually a self (no white) and whenever possible a pearl eye with a orange eye,(two pearl eyed birds will only make pearl eyed birds. (of course in an individual breeding loft)You can see my birds eyes color and contrast are excellent. I do mate two badges together if they have very little white on their heads.( This makes all the nice bald heads you see that I have bred) you can use a white flight bird like a self,as long as theirs no white on their Heads All the classical grizzles you see were made by mating a light colored grizzle with a self. If I sell all the beauties only, you are doing me a favor, because I get to see the selfs smokin up in the kits, And you are doing yourself an injustice, Because mating light colored birds together is going to give you fluffy feathered rollers, This doesn't happen over night, but after a few generations it will start to show. And the birds ;are going to roll sloppy. You can mate orange eyed birds together once, I would only do this once, and then go back to the( pearl=orange) combination. It took a lot of years for me to make these rollers as good as they are, I'm pretty sure it could take someone else two years to mess them up. mate dark colored selfs to light colored rollers . You need a balance. If I just wanted to sell rollers, Without performance in mind. Don't you think I would just make all of them beautiful. The best thing is with all different colored birds in the kit, you know who everybody is. A very big advantage, once you see a champion spinning 50 foot, that color no matter what, becomes your favorite, :) Keep em spinning, RK
To compete in competition with Birmingham Roller Pigeons, Is one of the hardest endeavors you will ever try, The most frustrating is the things completely out of the fliers control, We will take the World Cup as an Example the weather which we cant control, is different for most of the fliers, The Hawks, which we cant control , Their are many more BOP'S in some parts of the world than others. So the traits you want in a roller , by the way the traits are the same flying in competition or not. Make sure the breeder you obtain your birds from, breeds for these traits, Intelligence ( a good Birmingham Roller does everything right ) Type ( the apple body, and make sure the bird has a 1/2 to 1 inch gap from the end of it's flights, to the tip of it's tail. Speed while rolling ( must be the highest speed obtainable, and still be a smooth spinning ball. (( no jerking , no wing positions )) Now the most important thing, COLOR, oh if it was just April 1st. JUST KIDDING. Actually it would be frequency, This isn't the easiest thing to do, but you can get close. You want your shorter rollers to roll twice a minute. ( if your birds roll more than twice a minute, they don't have the ultimate speed a roller can obtain , of course if your birds only roll 5 ft. Although these birds are considered common tumblers by some, they are invaluable in keeping stability in your rollers) the deeper birds once a minute. How many of you would say a roller that had the ultimate speed for 150 feet, and rolled once every 5 minutes for 60 minutes was a champion, I would, We can also see that this champion would be useless in a modern day competition so I would obtain birds that did have the above traits, and then you , breeder of the most fascinating bird on earth, can create a family of your own, that may one day, WIN IT ALL.
the kit birds reaction, when a bird of prey attacked them. I noticed some of the birds would panic, and roll, and usually be caught. I also noticed some of the best rollers, would not roll when a hawk was around, And would always get the most distance between itself and the hawk, and always stay above the hawk, These rollers are very smart (intelligent) Now lets look at the whole process, The rollers I'm talking about above are 2 years and older. Any young squeaker just put up on the roof for the first time is vulnerable to hawk attacks, cats, snakes, and whatever else is around that can kill them. This is why early spring and summer are the best, and safest time to start your youngsters. If you start them in the fall (hawk migration) you might as well do them in yourself. When started at the proper time the young rollers have time to develop their flight, muscles, stamina, and then they have a much better chance of out flying the predators. Remember when a young roller is just learning to fly in the fall of the year, A old hawk has already learned everything it needs to know to snatch the squeaker right out of the air. Some roller breeders keep the late hatches locked up until spring, I don't believe a bird can develop properly this way. I do believe these birds can be used as stock It's already been proven that mating your fastest and deepest spinners together isn't the answer. The best way a new fancier can raise good birds is to test birds in the stock loft, At least these birds wouldn't be eaten by the hawks, if the birds don't produce good ones after 3 or 4 different mates, cull them.