Hawaii Performing Roller Club

The one thing that is left up, generally, to each individual is selecting for your stock loft. This entire process of breeding and selecting for future stock birds is very delicate and one you should not take lightly. The wrong choice and one season (+) could be wasted. This is why I believe breeding down to a tight family is very important - it makes most of your deciding easier and less of a guessing game.

I have found that good individual spinners are found everywhere, but did they raise 200+ birds to only get a handful of top notch birds or was it 50-60 that he raised for 20+ top notch birds? ( a percentage game ) Anyone can put 15-25+ pairs of decent birds together and get a good kit, but very few can put 6-10 pair together each year that will produce birds that are capable of competing with the best kit fliers in the sport. It is a fact that there are more and more fanciers each year that are understanding the importance of breeding a family of Rollers of their own liking. An individuals time spent with their birds seems to be a major factor in kit flying.

A family of birds should possess the basics of eagerness to fly as a kit. You should not have to cull a bird until after the moult, depending on how early your birds develop. I’ve had to cull birds once they begin to roll decent and are lacking quality, too frequent and coming down early, rolling down and injuring itself or basically because I feel it is never going to amount to anything- wrong type. It is important that you remain patient with a bird having problems, you must give them a fair chance to hopefully improve. The moult can cause a bird to do a 360 degree turn for the worse and if you are not paying close attention a possible good bird is wasted. I like my birds to develop into a spin from 5-8 months, but I will keep a bird ( I like ) for up to 10-12 months - no more. I refrain from breeding from birds that are late developers. If a bird is not up to the quality that will keep him/her as a hold over it is disposed of.

I have talked to fanciers who cull 10% before they even begin to roll just because they won’t leave the roof top. One can look at this in two ways; 1) Genetics and 2) a fanciers own neglect of improper training. I feel that a lot of times it may be a combination of both. At time a fancier will select a bird for stock knowing it’s faults thinking, of course, that you can breed the faults out of the off-spring a certain percentage of the time, this is very common. I think this sort of breeding will work, somewhat, a lot of the time, but will the faults of the parents be passed through their off spring, even if the off spring are free of their faults? I say yes. You must realize that one will rarely get 100% of the off spring as good or better than the parents would possibly explain the type of breeding that has taken place in previous generations. But honestly this is the best we’ll ever do. In genetics there will always be a recessive throw back or a "bad seed" some of the time, so don’t expect too much from your birds.

I know, depending on the family of birds, that there are some fanciers raising 30-50+% roll downs each year settling for this ratio due to being unaware of what’s really going on out there. They might say to themselves "These are percentages that all fanciers must deal with". If you think this is true, you may have a rude awakening. I personally feel that if you get 1 roll down in 5 from a pair, a change is in order, unless of course, the other 4 are dynamite!! I have noticed that each year most of my roll downs will come from 1 or 2 pair, hopefully with a change of pairs roll downs can be avoided. There is nothing worse than seeing a hot spinner turn into a roll down half way through your fly season, just when you needed it most. It has been my experience that I will only raise 10-15% each year that is of the caliber to earn a temporary spot in my stock loft which I consider a good percentage. Where will these 10-15% come from? What pairs will produce them? What round will they be in? We unfortunately have a difficult time with these questions and this is why I feel fanciers should not sell kits of squeakers. You may be selling your best birds!! I believe that best to best is an ideal mating, but beware of the depth in this mating. You must put together the "Ideal Pair" taking into consideration the qualities that the young will possibly have, so that you will not get roll downs. My family has shown me that I am able to adjust the depth of my birds through the cocks. The deeper the cock the deeper the off spring percentage and vis versa. All my stock hens will have a similar variable depth range of 10-30 or 40 feet. I tend to get a higher percentage of deeper hens than cocks.

I feel that the two most important qualities to concentrate on is the quality of the spin and velocity. If your family of birds has good tight high velocity spin then depth and frequency will be easy to add in, either by proper selection or with a select out cross from another source. A fancier will use an out cross to add in a specific quality that you feel your family is lacking. A hen would be a better choice for an out cross due to having fewer chromosomes in her genetic make up. This is why some fanciers will say the hen will throw "type" in a mating. A small hen will more often than not have small young, unless her smallness is due to being stunted by lack of proper feeding in the nest.

I have created my family around one prepotent hen using out crosses with her siblings and off spring. I have only mated her to an out cross once in the past 5 seasons. I think the key to breeding a tight family is to keep it at a small scale and selecting only the very best for stock. A fancier must also stay focused on a PLAN of progression with your family. Before each breeding season starts I will have thought out my up and coming season over very well and know what I will need from my yearlings to hopefully progress my family to my next level. It is ever so important that you know your birds in the air and more importantly in the stock loft. Good record keeping is a must.

These are qualities all my stock birds must have:

1.   High Velocity
2.   Excellent style, good quality with in the spin tight.
3.   Pulls out of the kit facing the kit more often than not and kits close performing with the kit.

4.   Depth range of 10 up to 40 feet

5.   A frequency of around 1+ times per minute consistently.

These five qualities are all needed for my selection plus good expression. The expression of a bird is the breaking point when two birds show the same good qualities. This pigeon will show good intelligence. Well, I don’t know what else to say except to keep your standards high and goals realistic.