# breeding mother to son: Birmingham rollers



## chrisgomez

Hi this is chris again and i have a pair of rollers but the female rolls 20 feet and the male rolls maybe about 10 feet and there babies are rolling about the same as the father. So my question is if i breed son to mother will their babies have more of the moms genes and roll as far as she does?


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## george simon

*Inbreeding*



chrisgomez said:


> Hi this is chris again and i have a pair of rollers but the female rolls 20 feet and the male rolls maybe about 10 feet and there babies are rolling about the same as the father. So my question is if i breed son to mother will their babies have more of the moms genes and roll as far as she does?


 Hi CHRIS, The first thing is that the young from this will pick up more of mom's genes GOOD AND BAD when one inbreeds they must understand that all birds that do not have the good trates that you are looking for must be removed from the breeding program.You also must understand that inbreeding leads to a loss of vigor and that those that inbreed will use birds from another inbred family in order to restore this lost vigor. You must understand that inbreeding is more complicated then most people understand .GEORGE


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## SmithFamilyLoft

chrisgomez said:


> Hi this is chris again and i have a pair of rollers but the female rolls 20 feet and the male rolls maybe about 10 feet and there babies are rolling about the same as the father. So my question is if i breed son to mother will their babies have more of the moms genes and roll as far as she does?


 This may seem like a simple question, but it can be very complicated. There are many articles written on the subject, and that may be the best place to start in order to begin to answer your question. Right off the top of my head, my suggestion would be to *not * breed from any roller that rolls only 10 feet, if your goal is to breed rollers which roll 20 feet. There may very well be rollers out there which only roll 10 feet themselves, but which produce rollers which roll 20 feet. I am assuming that a roller which rolls 10 feet would be pretty typical, and breeding from typical pigeons is not going to get you exceptional pigeons. Even exceptional pigeons breed mostly typical birds, that is what makes this hobby challenging. As pigeons tend to breed down and not up.

My suggestion would be to find a "good" male which is as good as, if not better, then your 20 foot roller. If someday you manage to acquire a 25 foot roller or better, then that bird *might* be a canidate for inbreeding. It's my personal opinion that only those birds which are exceptional and possess all of the desired traits should be used in an inbreeding program. 

I also would like to suggest, that some family lines react to inbreeding better then others. There is a generally accepted thought that inbreeding reduces vigor. I am not so sure that this is always true. I suggest that vigor may very well be a trait that some families pass on, in spite of inbreeding. I am developing a very inbred family, which has stood up very well to a level of inbreeding that would destroy other family lines. I am also of the opinion, that vigor should be an important part of the selection process. 

Getting back OT, inbreeding is a tool. It can advance you very quickly, or drive you in reverse twice as fast. Inbreeding very typical pigeons, will take you backwards, in my humble opinion.


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## jbangelfish

*Hi Chris*

I do think that you are on the right track with breeding sons to mom as she has the traits that you are trying to keep going. This type of inbreeding is called line breeding and is a sound practice. It makes sense because you are using the bird that you like and another bird that has at least some of her genes already. You can keep a strain going this way indefinately. If she has a son that shows more potential than the rest, use him.

When you do brother sister matings, you are often asking for trouble as you can be taking a hodge podge mix of genes, good and bad and the bad ones often come to the surface and weaknesses tend to show up, including loss of vigor. If loss of vigor is a big problem, the best way out of it is an outcross to another strain to get some new genes. This is called hybrid vigor and makes stronger birds or whatever animals you happen to be breeding. Even though they are not true hybrids, the strength that comes from another family or gene pool, is referred to as hybrid vigor and it does work.

Back to your situation, if you like mom and you keep breeding her to her best sons, you will be sorting out the genetics so that all will be more like her. If you keep doing this to her sons sons, generation after generation, they will become the most like her. All that said, the ability of rollers to roll well can be a tricky thing to work with and it certainly doesn't always work the way we want it to. The above mentioned breeding methods will sort the genes to the desirable ones that you want but they won't make great rollers every time. There is a certain amount of disappointment with breeding rollers, even if you have the best of families or genes.

Bill


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## re lee

Mother son You get more genes off the mother . Where the son carries 50 percent of the mores The young off the mother sone would increase to 75 percent. BUT The quality may or may not increase much at all. aS ANY breed of pigeon. you get good birds and not so good. The concept of say 10 percent if you are so lucky. That is 10 out of 100 birds. NOw say a pair you raise say 6 birds The ten percent rule means YOU may not get even 1 good bird But the hope is there that 1 makes the cut. NOW you inbreed agin grandson as also a son You get to tight in the gene pool. you get less productive birds from this. It would be best to get an other cock that is known to roll deep enough to put over this hen. And start from there. This saves time and money in the long run. When inbreeding or breeding down a line You have to control the strengh but building the line Father daughter mother sone takes a deep step fast You from there have to next breed from an unrelated bird or risk A failed program. Brother sisters just keep what you have the 50 50 split. Often people try to brreed back to a known quality bird. Why well say that bird shows in the pedigree as a grandfather. People try to bring that blood closer to the front as a way to strenghen there line As often that bird is 1 much to expensive to buy. 2 may be gone. But a mistake is if any bird is good or say great. it is useable. But has to be proven in the breeding loft. I say save your self some time find a good bird to put over this hen and build from there.


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## SmithFamilyLoft

jbangelfish said:


> .........Back to your situation, if you like mom and you keep breeding her to her best sons, you will be sorting out the genetics so that all will be more like her. If you keep doing this to her sons sons, generation after generation, they will become the most like her. All that said, the ability of rollers to roll well can be a tricky thing to work with and it certainly doesn't always work the way we want it to. The above mentioned breeding methods will sort the genes to the desirable ones that you want but they won't make great rollers every time. There is a certain amount of disappointment with breeding rollers, even if you have the best of families or genes.
> 
> Bill


 Back to more spare change, since I already provided my two cents....in theory, you could over many generations develope a whole line around the female you own, which rolls 20 feet. From my perspective, since I am in my 50's , I personally don't want to invest 10 or 15 years attempting to breed up to what might be a very typical level.

From a financial perspective, "good" or even "great" Rollers are far more affordable then even many "typical" racing pigeons. Perhaps for the price of a few bags of pigeon feed, you could stock your breeding loft with a prize Roller, which could save you 10 or 15 generations. When you consider the price of feed over the next dozen years or so, even the price of a dozen bags of expensive feed, might be a very prudent investment. That's the perspective I have taken with my racing pigeons, and the economics of Roller pigeons may make such a move even more logical. That way you could "invest" the next ten years trying to move your stock from "good" to world class, and if that becomes the case, then your "investment" could turn out much better then many of my stocks.....have turned out to be....


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