ROLLER PIGEONS FOR SALE 417-935-4751 or text only 417-319-3453. USDA Certified Roller Pigeon Loft. Ruby strain of Birmingham Rollers only. Prices start at $25 and up. See real pictures of birds for sale. Order online or call. Accept credit and debit cards. Ship Nationwide. Classic colors and patterns include Checks, Bars, Grizzles, Recessive Reds, Baldheads, Tortishells, Almonds, Splashes, Badges, Opal, Dilues and more! Ship Weekly
I decided to just let my birds pair up on there own this year since I have never seen any of them fly so I don't know who is good and who isn't good at rolling. My 2 favorite males are a lavender cock and his nest mate a brown bar cock. The rest of the males are all tchecks and ash red checks. Guess who ended up with no mates? I didn't have enough females to go around. Neither one of my light birds got hens. So that is my question. Do hens prefer dark cocks over the lighter ones? Mine sure did!
Bert Oh and I still can't get a photo posted on this site. I'm doing the HTML right but when I do it just comes out with the HTML. I don't like putting all my photos on an Internet site like photo bucket so I just load them on my web site and take them from there. It has worked on every other site I have ever tried but this one.
Last Edited by on Feb 22, 2008 4:49 AM
You can always mate them your way and the type you would like to get. If you leave them to breed by their own you might get two big birds breeding or two small birds together. You want to be in the medium size not to big or not too small. Also the keel and the expression that you like you can go for. Theire is so many things that you can do in the ground not just in the air.
Ask the breeder who bred them for his advise and it will be the best.
I have 2 different lines right now and they are in separate lofts. I am breeding the Billings birds to each other which are all the same body wise. Then I have Hoyle birds which are all basically the same body size too but most of them are ash red with some blue check but the body types are the same in both families. It just to me seems like the hens ignore the light colored males. I have 4 or 5 extra males and they are mostly light colored. That's all I was wondering it if anyone ever noticed that the hens prefer darker males?
The dark cocks in my kit box are the most dominant but also the stiffest. The hens love them because they are dominant and that is probably why they are also stiff, stronger in character. They are hold overs out of a Pensom line that I have since quit breeding because of so many stiffs.
Oh now that makes sense! They do seem to be more aggressive. I was going to pair them up in my breeding cages but they turned out smaller than I was expecting and I hate locking up a bird in a little cage for the season. Also seems like if they don't get any exercise they will be in poor shape for raising their young. My cages are 23" W x 15" H x 17 " D seems kind of small to me. They are about the same dimensions as the breeding cages sold on this site but once you get 2 birds in there and a nest it is really small looking. My canaries I was raising had cages that big. Next year I'll have a few more lofts bigger so I'll have more room and also more birds to pick from for breeding. Thanks for that helpful words everyone.
Bert, My breeding cages is 48" wide x 18" tall and 24" deep. This is a good size cage for two nest and a pair of rollers. I dont keep them in these cages year around I have a hen and a cock loft. I use these cages for about 4 to 4 1/2 months only. Then it back into the individual lofts. I like using the individual breeding cages because this allows me to know for 100% fact who the parents are. And the reason why most of the hens like the darker males is because they are probably older and you have a higher percentages of older male blue checks.
Now your two families in body type is different as night and day. And the way they are trained and flown is also completely different. The Billings birds look more like teardrops in body type and the Hoyle birds have more of a torpedo shape body. You will see it once you have them long enough. I tried feeding the hoyle birds as I did the Billings and they didn't perform up to par. But given a tad bit more feed and they would work but I never got them to there peak of performance. Since last year was my first year with them. And now I don't have any left.
I visited Jimmy Sherwood and seen his birds a few times in the air. I know Jimmy is like me and have to lock up the birds for 6 months at a time. This is what I need because of the BOP. Jimmy Sherwood birds are masons that came from Ellis McDonald who got them from George Mason direct {Imported}. And Jimmy has had good luck getting the birds back in the air after a 6 month lockdown and performing. Well enough to win our region a few times. And since Jimmy is close I can visit {5 hours away} and watch his birds and pick his brains. Plus I can email him with any problems I have with his family of birds since I got them from him.
So if you don't have anyone close by that can help you this site would be your next big help. Or even if you did have someone close this site has some good advice within its mass number of pages. But just remember what might work for them might not work for you... its getting to know your birds and getting to know what they can do.
