steve
Guest
Jul 28, 2004
6:35 PM
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example:the billings birds
higgins birds
norm reeds
jaconetts
masons
ouellettes
rick mees
i know that most of this have the same bloodline
in them but im am trying to figure out what lines
are easiest for the bigginer and which would
stand out as the best for competion i am sure that
this is what is the mind of the bigginer.
any info would be appreciated just trying to get
started with as for i hear that a bigginer could
destroy a good bird if he or she does not know
any better.
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Anonymous
Guest
Jul 28, 2004
8:42 PM
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Those are a few good ones out of many. If you want to do it right you should try and watch as many kits as you can and select a loft that flies the birds that have the velocity, style, depth, and frequency you are looking for. Be patient and take your time getting educated about the birds.
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AD3
7 posts
Jul 29, 2004
9:57 AM
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Here in California and throughout many backyards around here there is much talk about Norman Reed's line of rollers. I myself have seen 10+ kits that are made up of these lines and to say the least have been highly impressed. Many "hot" fanciers are said to have birds that go back to these lines.
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AD3 Online Loft @ http://ad3rollers.no-ip.com
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Russ
Guest
Jul 29, 2004
1:02 PM
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Steve, AD3,
I had some Norm Reed pigeons a few years back and so did my nephew and one thing we both noticed was that they were some really 'hot' spinners as yearlings but in the second year many became unstable, rolling down, and some went flat altogether. It could have just been a trait limited to the group of birds we were breeding from and others might have a different experience . I will say that some of them had exceptional velocity and they broke together very well but I didn't like them as older birds and gave them away. Looking back, I probably should have kept a few of the best ones and worked them differently as older birds. I would be curious to find out if anyone else had similar results with the Reed birds.
Good Luck
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MCCORMICKLOFTS
129 posts
Jul 29, 2004
4:37 PM
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Russ, I have had some experience with some Reed birds. My number one stock hen is off two birds directly from Norm. The percentages of good rollers from her, no matter what cock she is on is amazingly high, and they all seem to come in at about 5-7 months and every one that has, has made the A-team and some now in the breeding loft. I have flown some of them out past two years and they did become a little more in control of the roll than when they were young, but were still very managable and would roll no matter what the conditions were or how I fed them.
Now I bred from a pair of birds a friend loaned me who has built a very successful family off birds he pinched directly from Norm and didn't have good results. The way he built his family is very hot and thus, wasn't too conducive to the way I feed and manage my rollers. Consequently most became lawn darts or were just way too hot so I got rid of them. I do have on loan to me a cock bird from another angle of Norms birds which is more in line with his early '90s stuff and I have the first few rounds on the wing, but none have started rolling yet. The owner of the cock has built a very nice family off of keys birds from Norm, some of them the same birds behind some of Higgin's birds, and they come in really early, but surprisingly last into their second year and beyond. The owner of the cock flys mostly old birds of this family and they roll their asses off and don't come apart. The key is in the feeding. I think ultimately you will get the same kind of broad results steming from the same family when one guys takes a group of birds and other take other groups of birds. Some will end up with better results while others will end up with a bunch of crap they don't like. For me I am crossing my Reed birds with key stock birds I got from Danny Horner (both reed and horner got their birds from richard jaconette) and like are quite happy with the results. Not as many or should I say far fewer hot youngsters and they seem to work right into their second year with no problem for the most part. Always going to be execptions but I like the overall results. One thing to mention is that I have worked with a variety of families in order to find the groove I like and the birds I want to work with and every single one of those families have produced birds that in their second year get strong and go stiff if given even the slightest bit of extra anything.
Brian.
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Russ
Guest
Jul 29, 2004
6:38 PM
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Brian, thank you for sharing your experience with the Reed birds. As I mentioned, that was my experience with them and only limited to the group of birds we had, but after reading your post it makes me wish I had given them a little more wiggle room or brought in a different cock or two to work around the best hens. If the truth be known it was probably my management as second year birds that brought out the bad in the birds! LOL
Do you know if Norm's birds still have the heart and engine that they did 8 or 9 years ago? I haven't heard too much about him.
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MCCORMICKLOFTS
130 posts
Jul 29, 2004
9:30 PM
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Russ, the last time I talked to Norm was about a month or so ago in a conference call with some of the other guys who fly his birds. He had kind of, for whatever reason, strayed from his original stock and ended up with birds that came in later but didn't perform to his standards, or so that was the feeling I got. The way he made it sound was that he was back on track now with key birds that are producing more to what he has flown in the past. That's about all I can say really. He, Ron Kumro and Joe Houghton will be judging the LA Super Fly next weekend. If you get a chance you might want to join the fly and get a chance to talk to him. He's a kick in the pants to hear talk about rollers..lol.
Brian.
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spintight
26 posts
Jul 29, 2004
11:23 PM
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I have had some dealing with the Reeds too and even asked Norm about why he never kept a hold over team, this was 4-5 years ago.
he said the birds started to fly too fast and he couldn't control them with the feed as much.
I asked does that mean that they become less frequent or even stop rolling in some cases, he said well not really but they just fly faster.
To me this meant that the frequency did go a bit.
The stability problems I've seen with them tended to be with the young birds however.
My good friend Carl Schoelkopf worked with them exclusively.
He would have bids that would completely stop rolling all together when they were top spinners as young birds.
I think there are a lot of good ones in that older stock however.
I have flown the kumro/reed crosses to and they were much more unstable, at least the ones I got from Ron Kumro were.
They were sharing and exchanging bids several years back.
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