smoke747
1372 posts
Oct 31, 2008
5:48 PM
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could 4 plus 4 = 5
if you judged birds on a scale from 1 - 5. 1 being poor and 5 being great. Could it be possible for 2 fours bred together be able to produce a 5?
smoke747
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Keith London
ICRC
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maxspin
297 posts
Oct 31, 2008
5:53 PM
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Possible?
Yes If it were not possible to breed better than you have, then we would only have birds that flipped over one time.
Of course your percentages would go up if one or both of the birds were 5's
Keith Maxwell
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kopetsa
2057 posts
Oct 31, 2008
6:10 PM
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Great Question.. But yeah I would say yes..
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Andrew C.
Last Edited by on Oct 31, 2008 6:10 PM
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sundance
854 posts
Oct 31, 2008
6:15 PM
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or they could produce a lot of 2s and 3s, or just more 4s.
Tight gene pool would give better odds of getting 4s and maybe 5s.
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Butch @
Sundance Roller Lofts
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silver tail
557 posts
Oct 31, 2008
9:05 PM
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Smoke this is a great subject I think it can be done personaly and I know most believe this because they keep and use birds in the 1 range and expect to find apromise in there young.
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Tony Chavarria
Site Publisher
2880 posts
Oct 31, 2008
9:43 PM
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Hey Kieth, yes, I use a system whereby I look at certain traits and score them from 1 to 5, birds that are less than a 3 in any of the 5 Primary Traits will not make it.
However, they are certainly able to produce better than themselves due to the fact the required traits certainly exist in the gene-pool and can show up in offspring scoring a 3 and higher.
The value of any individual bird is going to depend on where the fancier is at in his program.
Like your question.
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FLY ON! Tony Chavarria
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smoke747
1373 posts
Nov 01, 2008
1:00 AM
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for those that have bred and flown fives, think back and see if the parents were 5s, probably not. in most cases 1 was a 5 and the other was a 4.
speed without style is nothing!
smoke747
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Keith London
ICRC
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Ballrollers
1569 posts
Nov 02, 2008
7:01 AM
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I think it depends on the minor defects that kept the parents from being 5s. If they both had those minor defects in the same area, then the young are more likely to be the same. I think it's a long shot to expect two parents with 4 speed to produce a 5 speed. But that depends on why the parents were only 4s. If one had the right type and the other didn't quite have it.....and one parent had the right character, but the other didn't....then yes, I think any of the young can get the best from both parents and you produce a 5.....or any of the young get the worst from both parents and we get crap. On the other hand, if both parents are 4s because of the same minor flaw, I think we are bound to perpetuate that flaw without bringing in a bird from the same family that does not possesse the genetic trait for that flaw. I spoke with JOe Bob Stuka at the convention about his tendency to outcross to othe families in order to bring in genes with a minor improvement or two. After many years of doing so, he has come to the conclusion that outcrossing is the long way around. He said that if he had it to do over again, he would search within his family of birds for the strength of improvement in a particular trait he was looking for.
JMHO,
Cliff
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smoke747
1374 posts
Nov 03, 2008
4:52 PM
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So everyone is breeding from 5's?
smoke747
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Keith London
ICRC
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maxspin
300 posts
Nov 03, 2008
5:30 PM
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5s???
I am still looking for a 5 to pull from my kit loft.
I am still breeding from some 3's. LOL
Between the BOP and pulling the best for the breeder loft. I start with mostly junk every year. I am making very small steps forward however.
Keith Maxwell
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black_hawk_down
160 posts
Nov 03, 2008
7:36 PM
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i have 1's and 2's... lol...
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rollernewbie
190 posts
Nov 03, 2008
7:39 PM
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yeah u might get a chance of 5s..but im thinking if they are 4s..they will produce more 4s...but not all produce good ones..GL..
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RollerNewbie
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Fireball
4 posts
Nov 03, 2008
7:43 PM
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Keith..that 2nd place non-finished hen (DCH) in Snohomish has a perch in my loft anytime you want to 'waste' her. We need to compare some notes this winter over a cup of coffee..I think some of our ped's overlap. Bruce
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wishiwon2
90 posts
Nov 03, 2008
10:00 PM
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I like this kind of thought process for a post topic ....
I have considered this in the past quite a bit, but you articulated it well Keith.
I hope and believe that 4+4 can equal 5. If not then we have no hope for improvement. Unless you start with 5's, you hypothetically could never have one. The birds I started with were inferior to the birds I breed from and fly now. So it is evidence improvements can be had.
I coach high school sports. I tell my atheletes that to go from a non athlete to an athlete who is able to be competative is fairly easy and requires only relatively small inputs. However, to go from being competative to being at championship level takes much longer and far greater input and dedication. I think it may be the same with breeding pigeons. To progress from producing non-rollers or inferior birds to those that are "adequate" can happen fairly quickly and is not so difficult. Yet to advance from adequate or average to top class requires much more discipline and effort and the road there is much slower.
In answering Keiths Q, can 4+4 make 5, I say it is easy to go from 2+2 making 3 or 4 and is possible but much more difficult to make 4+4 into 5. Progress has to be possible, I dont think it requires perfect input to get perfect output, sometimes the product of 2 parts is greater than either of the 2 parts alone (example; a 4x4 post is stronger than 2, 2x4's I think its called synergism). I also have often wondered if 4+4 doesnt have more potential than 2 (5's). How many times have you experienced or heard, "that bird was great in the air, but hasn't produced anything nearly as good as its self" Some of the very best in the air arent the very best in the stock pen. I dont know why, just something Ive seen. If breeding top quality rollers was simple and predictable, we'd all have kitboxes full of them.
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Big Block
7 posts
Nov 04, 2008
9:40 AM
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I'm breeding 3s or 4s. But these birds come from family of birds I would consider 4s or 5s. I've seen full bro & sis that were 5. I believe I have a good chance of breeding alot of 4s and maybe some 5s. What do you guys think?
watts rollers
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J_Star
1770 posts
Nov 04, 2008
12:10 PM
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Everybody needs to remember that a youngster is nothing more but an aggregate of its ancestry. If there were 5s in his/her ancestry, then breeding 4s together will yield 5s quite often. If the 4s were made from improvements to the stock thru several years of breeding selectively, then it will be much harder and harder to spot a 5 given that you might loose it from the time of being in an egg to making it to a perch.
Jay
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diamondrollers
301 posts
Nov 04, 2008
3:39 PM
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i dont think you need nothing but 5's to breed 5's. i bielive a bird that just flips can breed you 5's on the right hen doesnt mean i breed from flippers but it is posible. i've had birds that could spin there butts off not produce them selfs. why is that?
sal
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Pumpkin Man
16 posts
Nov 05, 2008
10:59 AM
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I know that there is something called Heterosis in livestock breeding that is basically the 4+4=5 affect you mention here. Some traits are highly heritable and some are lowly heritable, i'm not sure if anybody has identified which traits would be highly or lowly heritable in rollers but I'm guessing the same prinicple applies here. I think you might get some heterosis in rollers when crossing two distinctly different strains of rollers. Heterosis is also referred to as hybrid vigor. Obviously we wouldn't want to cross our rollers with another breed of pigeon, but I suppose some heterosis could be expressed when crossing strains, but obviously this gets back to the debate over linebreeding and inbreeding verses crossbreeding. There are propnents out there for each. I think it would be worthwhile to know what traits are highly or lowly heritable in rollers identify them and select for what is needed within your family. I know for example that muscling is highly heritable in livestock which means if you want to increase muscling in offspring you can choose a highly muscled sire and the effect is seen in the first generation offspring. I know some gamefowl breeders keep two or more disctict strains or line of chickens and then make battle crosses becuase of this hybrid vigor 4+4=5 effect. It would be interesting to know how many roller guys out there create a kind of battle cross for competition made from two distinct lines or families of pigeons.
-Billy Holleran
Lexington, KY
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