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The Original All Roller Talk Discussion Board Archive >
What IS a Birmingham Roller? Documentation Pastes
What IS a Birmingham Roller? Documentation Pastes
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Tony Chavarria
Site Publisher
470 posts
Feb 08, 2006
4:46 PM
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Moved To This Thread For Brevity Sake
Hey Cliff, thanks for the quotes and information...
What is a Birmingham Roller?
"The Pigeon" by Wendel Levi.
"The Birmingham Roller was developed in England in and around the vicinity of Birmingham, from which the breed derives its name. It is of comparatively recent origin, probably of the last 75 years. Lyell (1897) devotes only small space to the Birmingham and expressed the theory it descended from the Dutch Tumbler. Chapman (1937) advances the theory it was produced from a cross between the Old English Tumbler and the Dutch Roller. Pensom is of the opinion that it is descended from the Oriental Roller....The Birmingham Roller is a small, neat bird, with wings carried upon the tail. Nowadays it is usually clean-legged, though occasionally a feather-legged specimen is seen. The head should be neither flat not with the full frontal of a Long-face tumbler, but should have a smooth oval sweep from beak to back of skull. The beak should be of medium length, the eyes straight set, centrally placed, and with keeness of expression. The colors of the Birminghams, as might be expected (since the breed was selected for performance rather than for uniformity of plummage) are considerably varied and nearly all colors exist. Dietz (1922) enumerates selfs in black, red, yellow, duns, whites, almonds, blues, and silvers. He also mentioned white-flights, whitetails, beards, badges, baldheads, saddles, and bell-necks. In addition to the above colors, Birminghams also occur in spangles, mottles, grizzles, checker, duns, mealies, rosewings, and whitesides. THE COLORS ARE INIMPORTANT AND THESE NUMEROUS COLORS HAVE BEEN OBTAINED THROUGH THE MATING OF SELECTED GOOD PERFORMERS REGARDLESS OF THEIR PLUMMAGE." (My caps).
Fulton's Book of Pigeons 1875, Ludlow- "...these can be either heavy muffed, light muffed, grouse muffed or clean; with dark flights and with white wings."
A Treatise on the Art of Breeding and Managing the Almond Tumbler-1800-1805 as quoted by H.P. Macklin in 1954, in The Roller Pigeon- "Almond color is a mutation from the original rock dove blue and probably appeared very early, undoubtedly, in England. There is ample reason to believe the almond tumbler was used to breed the Birmingham Roller".
Tom Monson quote from Earl's List, 9/16/05-"The more interesting question might be, 'Which came first, almond tumblers in England or Almond Oriental Rollers in Turkey and Persia? The best evidence seems to be that the first Orientals were brought to Britain about 1850-1870. Almond tumblers were around at least a hundred years before that...
Certain English roller strains in 1925-1935 benefitted from infusion of blood from competition tumblers, probably the magpie-marked competition tumbler (Mags) to try and obtain the hair-trigger breaking ability, as well as the mental inclination towards much more frequent breaks or turns. About the same time, other fanciers developed and perpetuated the short-faced, recessive and black badge family of competition tumblers. Tipplers were crossed into some families for their high flying characteristics desired at the time, and for eye color. Much of that blood has been bred out of today's Birmingham Roller, while the unique, sudden breaking tendency has been retained."
In North America, the first reference to Birmingham Rollers was in a classified ad in the "Homing Exchange" out of Germatown, Pennsylvania: "Herbert Lyman, Waltham, Mass, Breeder of well marked and fast performing long-faced tumblers and Birmingham Rollers in black, red, blue and yellow saddles and badges; white, black, red, and yellow solids and mottles." This predates the Canadian imports of Whittinghams by McAree of Toronto between 1890 and 1895.
My take on things-Based on the evidence, there appears to be little doubt that since their inception, Birminghams have been available in many more colors than blue and red, including dilutes of both red and blue, as well as spread, and almond. It is interesting to note that the origins of Birminghams apparrently involved multiple breed outcrosses. Even after the breed was established, we have evidence of additional breed outcrosses to improve performance, though the author hastens to clarify that all the "undesirable" genes were bred out of breed as it exists today, retaining only the "desireable" performance traits. It is interesting that some men in the hobby today would now apply a double standard to the continuation of those breed outcrosses for other personal reasons, such as feather color and pattern modifiers. Of course, some in the hobby will remain in denial of the facts about the history of the breed, as they exist. I have much more, but time and space prohibit......
YITS Cliff
Last Edited: by Ballrollers on 2006-02-08 14:09:55.87
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FLY ON! Tony Chavarria
Last Edited by Tony Chavarria on Feb 08, 2006 4:49 PM
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Tony Chavarria
Site Publisher
477 posts
Feb 10, 2006
6:33 AM
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Moved By Moderator
(since the breed was selected for performance rather than for uniformity of plummage) are considerably varied and nearly all colors exist.
If you select the breed for anything other than performance your responsibility to the breed is questionable? nicksiders
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Tony Chavarria
Site Publisher
478 posts
Feb 10, 2006
6:36 AM
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Moved By Moderator
Tony and ALL,
I have a "BROWN" Bar hen in my B-team. Years ago I got some birds that I thought were good...But I never really flew the offspring..because I ended up getting birds from Mort Emami, Chuck Roe and Scott Campbell and Later on ...you Tony...so I dumped all my iffy pairs...but back to my story. I ended up keeping the little brown bar hen...because she was really tame. She was my first 04 bird. She was really an oops because her mother an father were fosters and they ended up hatching one of ther own. I thought it was a wooden egg...LOL!! The father was a Brown Bar Cock and the mother was a Little Black hen with white flight. Anyway, I kept her because she was such a sweetheart that I could keep her in my young bird team and she would help them learn to trap, kit, eat..you know just a teacher type of bird. would never pick on the young birds. She was hatched in March of 04..performace wise..she would do little 5 ft rolls and that was about it..pretty good speed but for sure a cull if I did not have my special use for her. Well, guess what...about two months ago....I was flying my young bird team and she was in the front as usual...when BAM she hit a 20ft roll then a 25..fast as hell with excellent quality and popped out like she owned the sky. Never freaked out...didnt stay away from the kit just kept doing good...I though to myself...damn...that is pretty good for being in the young bird kit getting the better feed...she was a little chunky...or as many would say...BIG BONED!!LOL My B-team only had 12 birds so I thought what the hell...lets cut the feed and fly her like a comp bird in the B-team...Holy shit...she is doing damn good...Ball bearing smooth. It only took her about 1.5 years to really come into the roll..but she has 100% total control and likes to roll. She will never see the breeding loft...because she is not related to anything I have...but man is she good....but I also do not want my birds coming into the roll until a year and a half...but maybe she was being flown so much with the young birds and fed up....she started rolling after I locked them down for a week because of weather...Would she have come into the roll if I had flew her like a comp bird from the begining.....who knows....but the point is...She is BROWN..Rolls good....I can send a photo to someone if they want to post it...I am a retard and can't figure out the posting thing. I think someone said that they wanted to see a Brown. Tony I also have a darker mealy bar like you are talking about that is a RUBY ROLLER...I could take a photo with the two so that you could see the difference.
rock and ROLL
paul
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Tony Chavarria
Site Publisher
479 posts
Feb 10, 2006
6:37 AM
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Moved By Moderator
Paul, I don't want to high jack Tony's thread, but I wanted to comment on something. You mentioned your displeasure about the hen coming into the roll so late, and not wanting to use her for that reason. I would normally, and adamantly agree with you. But I learned something this past season. I have an ash red grizzle cock bird that was just a trooper in the kits for the longest time. I never saw him so much as even flip. He was "big boned" too. He returned six months later from an overfly which made him about 20 months old. I reflew him and he started to roll, and roll deep! He was seldom, but deep. Nothing fancy as far as quality goes. Just pleasant. I decided to try him on his half sister for a quick round. She came in at about 7 months. They produced two cocks, one I have yet to see do much, but one is coming on pretty good and both are about six-seven months old. The father cock also jumped another hen in that loft and the result was a great little spread ash red hen that came in at about six months. So in the minute time he was allowed to seed a few eggs and the youngsters flown, my reasoning about late developing birds has been shot right out the window. I'm betting, that your hen on the right cock bird would produce similar results.
Brian.
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