The Difference Between Various Breeds of Rollers

[birdbum]

I have two questions.

1) What is the difference between each roller breed? Such as an American Roller vs. a Birmingham Roller, or an Oriental, or a Performing Roller? I know that there are probably more but these are the main breeds I've happened across at shows, along with Parlors (which I think are incredible).

2) I have a roller of my own and I'm not sure which breed she is. I don't have a picture of her right now, but I can snap one of her tomorrow and upload it. Is it possible to help me find out her breed by just looking at her?

Here's a picture of Infiniti, my roller on the left next to one of my homers.
is it possible to tell what breed she is?

[bluecheck]

1) What is the difference between each roller breed? Such as an American Roller vs. a Birmingham Roller, or an Oriental, or a Performing Roller? I know that there are probably more but these are the main breeds I've happened across at shows, along with Parlors (which I think are incredible).

Okay, the differences between an Oriental Roller and all the others is easy. An Oriental is a bigger bird with dropped wings and, quite honestly, seems to be the ancestor to most, if not all, the other rolling breeds. You can see a lot of shots of Oriental Rollers at: http://www.angelfire.com/ut2/uora then just click on the various links on the home page. Orientals can be fantastic in the air and they are also bred for show. The main clubs in the U.S. for them are the United Oriental Roller Association and the Flying Oriental Roller Society.

Birminghams, as the name indicates, were created and flown in northern England. They're a smaller bird than the Oriental, about the size of a feral pigeon. To the uniformed, they look like "common pigeons", but they tend to be more upright, have a higher forehead frontal, and spin. Birminghams, West of England Tumblers, and Tipplers all seem to have had a common ancestry and then diverged as they were bred for various types of flying - the Wests being more long flying and only tumbling two or three times; the tipplers for extended endurance flying (personally, I think they have some Indian ancestry in them from Brits returning home with high flying pets from India during the 19th century); the Birminghams for deep and sustained rolls.

You can see a lot of Birminghams at various sites on line, but check out the http://www.nbrconline.com

Performing Rollers are simply Birminghams that are flown - to often separate them from Show Rollers, which were bred from the Birminghams sometime during the 1970's on. The Show Rollers are a much bigger, more massive bird, that is strictly a show bird now. Here's a website of one of their master breeders with lots of pics of the birds as well. http://www.showrollers.com/

American Roller are smaller than the Birminghams, more on the size of a Parlor. I've heard a few different views of where they come from - the most common one is that they are a continuation of the line of rollers that were common in the States before the heavy importation of the Birminghams from England in the 1930's on. http://www.americanrollerclub.com/ http://www.cichlidlovers.com/birds_nahfr.htm (this has the history of the North American High Flying rollers from this loft of them going back to the 1800's) This looks to be another example of some renaming and one line going one way to show and one to flying -- I'm not an expert on these by any means, but note that the first club looks to be mainly show, while the older man's loft looks to be a flying one.

There's also the American Flying Tumblers. Here's the history as they state it at the club website: http://www.boomspeed.com/olag/aft/history.htm

As for the Parlor - there seems to be no doubt at all that they were created in Scotland in the 19th Century and seem to have been bred by breeding deeper and deeper rollers together - possibly with a cross of an Indian ground tumbling bird called the Lotan, though that seems to be less likely and even if it happened the genetic material from such a cross would long have been swamped out.

Parlors can often fly while young. Some of the best Parlor Rollers in the world can be viewed at: http://www.angelfire.com/super2/04fo...ler/index.html

The West of England Tumbler (there is an American version and a British verson and they are so different as to be actually two separate breeds) can be seen here http://www.nwoetc.com/ (these are the American version and almost totally a show breed now) Here are some pics of the British West of England Tumblers

The British version of the Wests (and the one they claim IS the West) is a taller, rangier bird with only small muffs and which is apparently still flown in England as a Tumbler. http://www.national-federation.co.uk/cbchoc.jpg http://www.national-federation.co.uk/rb3.jpg

The American version, at least some of them, will still go up and tumble occasionally - -I used to fly a pair, a black male and a brown female (both baldheads) and the female would tumble all the time in series of two or three, while the male never did.

And yes, there are literally hundreds more tumbler breeds, including some that I intend to have at some point - the various Turkish tumblers. http://www.turkishtumblers.com/

BTW - Birdbum, your bird looks to be a Birmingham.

Frank Mosca

[birdbum]

Thank you Frank! I don't think that I would have known that without your help.

[bigislerollers]

Aloha Frank,

That was a very good post. I wonder if a moderator/administrator could "sticky" this post as it has a lot of valuable info for anyone interested in "rollers".

[Trees Gray]

Originally Posted by bigislerollers

Aloha Frank,

That was a very good post. I wonder if a moderator/administrator could "sticky" this post as it has a lot of valuable info for anyone interested in "rollers".

Why, I think that is an excellent idea, so be it!

[bigislerollers]

Thank you Treesa.

[juanputik]

hi there...where can i buy roller pigeons? is it the same with tipplers?

[bigislerollers]

Aloha Juanputik,
Your best bet in locating rollers is to find someone locally where you can see the rollers in the air before you purchase them. You can also try posting in the NBRC forum here.

NBRC

You can also check the club listing on the NBRC site to see if there is a club near you.

"is it the same with tipplers?"
If you're asking if rollers and tipplers are the same, than its a no, they are not the same. Rollers are bred for their rolling ability and tipplers are bred for their ability to fly for hours.

Hope this helps.

[Jastreb]

One thing that I noticed here is that people seem to think that roller is a breed. There was that question in what colors do rollers come in, when there are "hundredths" of roller breeds. Each has its own standard, look different, perform different, and come in different/or the same colors.

In my opinion the word roller should come with a prefix. Oriental roller, Birmingham roller

[fresnobirdman]

theres a simple answer to it, fly it!

if it can roll a good depth of 10 or more feet, its a preforming roller,
if it olny flips its a show bird.

has less 12 or less tails, not a oriental, (orientals have 13 tails)

if it does nothing, then its a color bird, was bread for the color, mixed with all kinds of birds.

[UncleBuck]

Great Thread!
I like the line about selling the birds - If you sell it, list it properly. When I was a kid I saw rollers (Birmingham and the graham fireballs) for the first time and wanted some. I bought some at a show and I was lucky if they would flip once or twice.
Then a gentleman who was into real rolling, flying rollers gave me a couple of pairs. He also told me that I should never buy a roller if I had not seen it flying. I understand now what he was talking about.
But there are also people that enjoy the rollers for show, color ad all sorts of other reasons that do not include rolling.

[fresnobirdman]

Dido?
wtf is that?
that hen does not look too young,
if you got a 6 month old hen, and it only flips, hahaha
its as good as gone.
at 6 months it should show good progress.
even late bloomers like pemson birds can roll 5 feet at 6 months, and by 2 years,
it will make your eyes pop out!

no preforming roller should take a year to FlIP!

just fly it man, as easy as that!

[TAWhatley]

Originally Posted by fresnobirdman

Dido?
WHAT is that?

I think he meant ditto, and kindly watch your abbreviations here.

Terry

[TAWhatley]

Well, I gotta say this .. I read a major roller pigeon list just about everyday, and I am appalled each and every day at the lack of consideration or courtesy the members have towards one another and am absolutely horrified at some of the cold and callous comments made about the birds. This kind of stuff will NOT fly here on Pigeon-Talk, so if you've got something to say, try to say it politely and keep in mind that culling is a very hot button word and subject here.

Terry

[fresnobirdman]

Originally Posted by TAWhatley

I think he meant ditto, and kindly watch your abbreviations here.

Terry

will some one kindly tell me what that is.