Statements and Brain Twizzlers

Pigeons have very unique cardiovascular development in their legs which exchanges heat between arterial blood vessels and deep vein blood vessels by a network of bypass vessels. This allows birds to have relatively "warm" legs in the cold and they can also release heat from their legs in hot environments to stay cool.
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Pigeons cool off in the heat by releasing water in the air sacs connected with its lungs and of course by panting that cools the blood to the brain.
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Our eyes in conjunction with our brain will always pick out the gross exceptions in a group of same or alike items.  The gross exceptions always being the ugly, the broken, and the malformed can be spotted or identified down to an individual and quickly counted.  It is more difficult to get a snap shot in your mind of those items that are of a positive form due to this phenomenon.  That is the reason why and how a single human can make a good inspection of a large count items looking for the faulty few in an industrial setting.  The overall generalization of wing positions in a kit of birds can be done by an observant roller pigeon judge with similar exactness and proficiency as found in any other setting trying to find those few gross exceptions amongst like items.
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The most important feature is the eye, which should be bright and expressive of high intelligence and character.  The eye can be of any color:  Pearl, yellow, orange, bull or brown and multicolored.
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In my opinion the most satisfactory depth is around 8 or 9 yards. In this distance an ideal spinner will maintain its speed all the way down. Regularity in the number of times the pigeon rolls in a certain time is also a deciding factor. Forty rolls in 20 minutes would not be anything out of the ordinary for a Champion.
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Breeding a 20 foot spinner to a 40 foot spinner will not give you all 30 footers.  It will give you some 20 footers and some 40 footers and all the other shit in between
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I have watched other breeds of rollers to include the Oriental and none of them can even come close to the Birmingham.  As far as I am concern the only Roller is the Birmingham
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Both the Birmingham Roller and the Tippler were born out of the Flying Tumbler in different sections of England.  Tippler breeders would eliminate the bird that tumbled or rolled and the Roller breeders would eliminated the bird that did not roll.

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Always start with a larger kit than the competition calls for; you can always remove the lesser value birds on competition day.  Avoid adding new birds to a kit the day of or shortly before competition because they will be reluctant to join in with the team.

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Either you are going to compete or you're going to raise pets.  You can't raise pets and compete successfully; you got to make that decision of what you want to do.

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If you are naming your birds you are probably raising pets

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I don't like hearing "Your birds kitted well" from the judge.  What that actually means is they didn't score worth a darn, but I will say something nice anyway

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To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

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This excessive emphasis on concerted performance is still sticking in my craw (and after 57 years of being around pigeons, I might actually have one!).

I've already expressed how wrong I think it is to ignore great spinners in favor of the ultimate unison break. Pensom said that turn scoring would degenerate the breed and favored individual contests in his book, "The Birmingham Roller Pigeon".

I realize that hopefully, the breed has come along further than what it was in Bill Pensom's time (Bill passed in 1968).  I think the World Cup rules with respect to breaks is fine...if not carried too far.  That is the basis of my concern. My own order of importance is: rolling speed and style (I.E. Quality) and rolling must be done from the kit (out birds are a no no).  2nd, the deeper, with control, the better.  Concerted rolling is after these things for me. If I can say, "one thousand one" and have 5 or more birds breaking within the time it takes me to say that, I'm not unhappy.  I have never believed that Birmingham Rollers were about splitting seconds -- they are about rolling with quality.

The other part of concerted performance is the emphasis on having full brothers and sisters in a kit and or half brothers and sisters.  This is good advice for flying a team that works together well, though as many have observed, unrelated birds can also make a good showing at times.  My emphasis in creating a roller family was never geared to finding a click pair or two and then make a kit out of their young.  I always have tried to develop a close family of birds where, if done right over time, one can have many pairs of birds that will reproduce the goods.

There are various approaches to breeding, some try to have click pairs, some produce a lot of birds and sort out the best ones, putting up with a poor percentage of good ones.  My goal is to have a lot of very good pairs, and there will be some click pairs in the group, which go back to a handful of top quality spinners.  I want a group like this that I can pretzel breed and/or have a great number of possible matings.  I believe it's a mistake to just stop at the click pair, I believe we need to move forward with our efforts to create production predictability and to create more click pairs within a closely defined bloodline.  It's then that we have arrived as a breeder but it takes at the least 10 years to do this, realistically more like 20 and that's if everything falls into place.  You also have to be a decent trainer to prove out the birds and give them a fair chance to show their worth.

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Fellow fanciers,

Why is it that we, as a whole, tend to run away from rules? Why not have better defined rules? Are we a bunch of illiterate fools? All I see is people posting about how there are too many rules already and it should be more simplified. Seriously, in competition, we have basically no rules. The only real rule we have is the judge scores whatever he sees fit because whether it rolls 5' or 15', if the judge doesn't like it, he doesn't have to score it and there's no accountability. When you look at any real sport, the rule book is immense. The NFL rule book is 112 pages while the MLB rule book is 136 pages. Ok, so you guys may say that rollers isn't the same as a mufti-billion sports industry and I agree, but what about a lowly recreational flag football league? To be more precise, a Hmong flag football league that includes about 1500 players nationwide where all they do is play in very very small tournaments 10-12 times a year recreationally. Our Hmong flag football rule book is already 14 pages long.

 

If you look at all sports, the one thing they have in common with us is the fact that the judge/ref gets final say BUT the judge/ref must have rules they have to adhere by to the best of their ability. We don't have any clear cut defined rules to help the judge which leaves the judge vulnerable. Why not help out all flyers and judges with more well-defined rules? Some of you may not like hearing this from a new guy but the fact is there are so many guys who don't compete or shy away from the hobby because of our lack of rules and formalities.

 

I mean, you've seen this before with other fanciers who've left the roller hobby for the racing hobby. Why? Simple, in racing homers everything is well defined and the judge can never lie or judge unfairly because the clock doesn't lie. This is not to say judges lie BUT many fliers will feel cheated because there is really no criteria to what is and isn't a scoring break. You guys may say "5 or more birds breaking together" but then we have so much to say about what together/unison/simultaneously is not to mention style, depth, velocity and what not.

 

Yes, if we have more rules, the judge WILL HAVE TO READ MORE but how is that hurting the hobby? It is a privilege to go out and judge your peers, the least you can do is understand the rules and protect yourself, your peers, and your hobby

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Incidentally, the deep roller is at a greater disadvantage in a flying competition than the shorter worker.
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A good exercise for a roller breeder to do a couple of times a year: Stand on the end zone line at one end of a football field and study what the distance between the cross bar and the ground of the other goal post. If your birds are 300 feet away this is how much separation your birds have to have from the point of the break to score minimum. The move up about 30 yards or a 100 feet. This is what it has to be at 200 feet. Then you will have an idea why the judge is not scoring some of your breaks. -

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The human being can only accurately quantify and identify up to 16 objects with any appreciable accuracy.  The fewer that number is the more accurately he can observe down to one.  We are also set up to do it by threes with one being the most accurate.  It goes three; six; nine; twelve; fifteen; with 16 being a cut off of the accuracy curve.

I cannot give you a reference for this information, but it is something I learned from school or the military for some reason or another and I don't know if it was from an instructor I herd it or from a text I read it.  But, I believe I can or have recalled it accurately.

The reason I have thought about this is because of being curious why so many of us seem to prefer 20 bird kit competitions and then I recalled some of this information tucked away in some dark corner of my brain.(LOL).  The only thing I can see in our Roller history that got us to liking the 20 bird kits comes from Pensom or that group around him who seemed to feel that was the best number.  He or they could have been wrong and it may have been just an arbitrary number he or they used.....or something like that.

This information also got me to thinking about the 11 bird kit competition used by the NBRC and how seemingly we can more accurately observe them.  It fits right into this thinking; humans can simply manage it better.
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I have never looked at back muscles on a Roller because the chest is where it is at.

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We have a tendency to cherry pick what the Pensoms of the world say about this bird.  They were not inspired by a god when they made statements.  We don't like the birds that twizzle, but Pensom did.  Pensom often changed his opinion.  If I disagree with the word of Pensom I am still without sin(LOL).

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Thoroughbred horses that do not race successfully are still Thoroughbred horses; English Setters who do not hunt well are still English Setters; Racing Homers who get lost are still Racing Homers; and Birmingham Rollers that do not roll to standard are still Birmingham Rollers.  They might be culled, but they are what they are.  We got to quit making shit up to suit other agendas we may have in the hobby.  That is why our hobby just doesn't get the praise that it should be getting from those not in it.  We come up with this idea that the breed Birmingham Roller is only a Birmingham Roller by meeting a performance standard only.  This allows us license to cross whatever we choose into the breed and if we can achieve breeding the roll back into it that meets standard we can again call it a Birmingham Roller.

I can't understand why you just can't name the cross something else and be happy with it.  Name it after yourself or something.  Be proud of it.

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I am not trying to start an argument here. I know there are a rare few men who can pick good birds in the hand. I believe what makes birds spin great, is internal. The motor and the heart you cannot see or feel in your hands. I believe it true that one can identify all the physical traits that go along with great spinners, but they are not cause and effect relations. Because a birds has all the physical signs we can see that correlate to great performance, doesn't mean it will even flip, or not wing switch, or work as a part of a team rolling in the breaks ... There is no substitute for proven in the air. Once you have a set that have demonstrated their ability in the air, pick through them using whatever criteria gives you confidence. Pick the ones that are closest to your perceived ideal, AFTER, they've been flown out proper. I profoundly admire and respect mature birds that have proven their worth for several seasons of performance, especially those that can shut down for extended period, maybe even breed a few rounds, and go back in the air as good as ever they once were.

 

I don't like long beaks/faces. I like bright eyes with lots of graveling. I like a tapered flight feather. I like a keel that flows smoothly to the point of the vent. I like a little longer wing/tail (cast). I like thick necks and heavy broad heads, stout beaks.  I don't like cocky cocks. I don't like wild acting birds in the kit box. I like a touch of chrome on them (a white feather or 2 here or there). All these are my likes, I don't think they have to do with a birds ability to perform. and very little to do with its ability to reproduce great birds.

The pigeon can recognize people according to a study done in Glasgow
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Darker colored pigeons are healthier, researchers in France have discovered.

A study of urban pigeons in central Paris has shown that birds with higher levels of the dark pigment melanin have stronger immune systems. They are also better able to fend off parasites.

Writing in the Journal of Avian Biology, the researchers say the findings may help explain why different colored birds have adapted to different environments. Lisa Jacquin, and her colleagues from the National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, carried out the research in conjunction with Dr Simon Ducatez from the Natural History Museum in Brunoy. The researchers explored why birds of the same species are often colored differently. 

By assessing the coloration and state of health of 195 free-living urban pigeons, they found that darker pigeons had lower concentrations of a blood parasite called haemosporidian. Their immune systems also responded faster to infection, compared to their pale-feathered cousins. Currently there are two theories about why animals of the same species can be colored differently. First, it may be that their environment is causing the color difference, a theory called the "exposure" hypothesis. An alternative theory is that birds have evolved genes which code differently for melanin expression, a theory called the "genetic link" hypothesis. "We tried to disentangle the 'genetic link' and the 'exposure' hypothesis in free-living feral pigeons Columba livia," Ms Jacquin reported. Her team's research suggests that the birds may have evolved to produce higher levels of melanin in order to protect their immune systems. This could also explain why there are higher populations of dark feathered birds in urban areas, where parasite prevalence is higher. "The finding that immune responsiveness and parasite intensity correlates with coloration suggests that melanin-based colouration could play a role in sexual selection," explains Ms. Jacquin.

So darker birds may be healthier and also appear more attractive to the opposite sex.

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Without exception, they were able to stop out of a roll without a tail. There tail does not serve as "the brakes" to stop a roll.
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I believe switching wings is an inherited fault. I believe in some cases it simply comes from a poorly balanced roll that rotates at angle angle off of perpendicular to the long axis of the bird, (they roll over their shoulder) and eventually have to switch to keep the rotation head over tail. Others, and perhaps the majority of them, switch as a defense mechanism trying to resist the roll impulse. As some the other guys said it is often closely associated with instability. I have had some young that switched a little during their initial development. But it seems that any that persisted switching once well into the roll, were lifetime switchers regardless of management or development stages, etc.
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I personally don't believe guys when they say they dont breed switch wingers or birds with balance issues or something generally funky and incorrect with their spin. To say that every bird that you raise is completely correct in position every time they roll, is ridiculous in my mind. Yes, it is more than likely a inherited trait, but I believe it occurs in every family of Birmingham's. Some guys have worse or better percentages but it is present in all. I cant imagine a fancier never breeding a roller that is incorrect at some point. That is a big fairy tale if you ask me. I have never witnessed a kit were every pigeon is continuously perfectly correct in its spin every time they spin.

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In over 30 years every person that I have seen breed for depth has lost the style and speed. If you breed for the speed and style the depth will follow suit. Not the other way around.

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1/13
Finding a good outcross isn't easy. And strong rollers often need to be inbred several generations to weaken them enough to ensure a satisfactory proportion of desirable performers. Outcrossing brings on hybrid vigor that can be a blessing in racing homers, but a curse in rollers, making them too strong, too seldom, too unpredictable, and so on.

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2/13

Not a great deal is revealed by these outward characteristics about "health" vs. "illness." The beak and feet/legs give more obvious signs of condition than of health.

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3/13/13

As long as a bird has food and water it can and does tolerate a wide and sometimes severe range of weather and its temperatures. Generally the pigeon flyers who don't fly in the coldest or hottest times of the year make that decision based on their own comfort only. Birds will not die caused by flying.

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6/28/13

I fly My hens and cocks separate and have for some time now.  We all know the obvious reason's like mating, eggs in the kit box, and pairing up one affecting the performance of the other.  The one I like the method best for, is it is much easier to get hens to come on point as they eat and fly the same or closer too. My cocks, same thing.  My cock birds don't fly as high nor as long as my hens.  I can feed my cocks more, my hens need about 3/4 to 1/2 as much feed to do twice the time.  So my #1 reason is cocks and hens feed different and require different amounts.  Hens tend to break in larger numbers around here and be a bit more uniform in depth and unison in timing, cocks tend to roll deeper on average and be a bit more waterfalling but they are the kit I enjoy the most on the good days.  Seems like my show time birds usually come from the cocks.  Of course not always, -  Breeder is using the term "show time birds" as a description of the performance of the birds and not in reference to the show cage.

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7/1/13

Having too many pigeons to properly take care of is one of the biggest problems found with roller breeders.
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7/8/13
It's not what you're FEEDING, but WHAT you're feeding! 
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7/11/13

Its not the dilute that makes it unstable.  It is why the dilute pigeons were selected.  People used the pigeon just for the fact it was dilute and was pretty and not because it was a good high value roller.  The dilute got picked for the wrong reasons and now dilutes are said to be unstable when in reality it was why the dilute was selected in the first place by the breeder.  This is what happens when you choose a bird for something other than for it performance.
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7/14/13

Why would we breed a pigeon and call it a Tumbler that doesn’t tumble or even perform?  Is this is to be blamed on breeders hiding in backyards throughout the world crossing and out crossing and finally breeding the performance out of them and using them to satisfy other desires?

Do we actually believe a Silky is a beautiful functional pigeon?  How about the Porcupine Pigeon?  Bare Neck Pigeon? 

 

Do we really desire a bird that cannot fly and does backward somersaults on the ground for hundreds of feet?  When it is startled will simply roll off of the nest containing eggs requiring a different breed to incubate the eggs? 

 

Do we need to be breeding a bird that has such a sub-par or exceptionally small beak that it cannot satisfactorily feed its own young and another breed has to be used to foster the young?

 

Has genetics gone astray as it relates to these examples?

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8/7/13

Of course pigeons think. They are sentient creatures that sense danger and react to it. They experience sexual drive, parental nurturing drive, territorial drive, and the like. And they experience these drives in part through mentally processing the circumstances in which they find themselves. Any pigeon man who supposes otherwise isn't paying attention. Do pigeons experience complex emotions? Of course not.

There's a great deal of information on the "thinking" ability of pigeons. They ain't dumb. I agree that birds cannot experience complex emotions, but that doesn't mean they cannot experience simple or rudimentary emotions