Mistakes of a Novice Tippler Flyer: Part I

By: Jacob Sewall
Date: May, 2004
Category: General

Mistakes of a Novice Tippler Flyer Part I: The lure of the Tippler

There is much that has been written about what to do when starting out with
flying Tipplers and I have read a fair amount of that material, asked many
questions, received detailed responses from some of the most dedicated
flyboys in the game and still made enough mistakes to discourage my initial
endeavor with Tipplers. It is now two years since I gave up Tipplers
specifically and the pigeon hobby in general due to a combination of
frustration, discouragement, and the necessity of a move to an apartment.

While at the time moving to a location where breeding or flying pigeons is
impossible seemed the most dire of situations, these two years of separation
have provided some much needed perspective and understanding on my part. It
is my hope to put forth in a series of essays the pitfalls that I stumbled
into and the mistakes that I made in the hope that this discussion may help
someone else to avoid with these mistakes and stick with flying Tipplers.

To begin I would like to delve into a subject previously discussed in a most
excellent article by Michael Beat, Why Tipplers? In North America if you
wish to contest with a flying breed, there are three major options, with
Tipplers being the shadowy least of the three (though likely the most
rewarding, I would argue). In the primary spot is the Racing Homer. The
number of Racing flyers in competition numbers in the thousands and on any
given race weekend there are hundreds of thousands of pigeons in the air all
across the country. Flying racing homers in competition, particularly old
birds, provides a very satisfying and challenging hobby for many. Breeding a
champion racing homer is a project to take a lifetime. Training and
motivating old birds to fly home at top speed, in the peak of condition is a
tremendously rewarding experience, on par with molding your own family of
outstanding racing pigeons. With the challenge and rewards of breeding,
training, and testing (competing) available to the racing homer fancier, why
look further?

The answer to that question for me takes two directions. The first is
related to one point above; old birds, in my opinion, provide the most
individual interaction between fancier and bird for me one of the most
enjoyable aspects of the hobby. The sport of racing pigeons is, in many
areas, less and less a hobby in this day and focused more and more on young
bird racing at shorter distances. No longer is the elite of the elite the
careful preparation of those special few birds to fly 600 miles in a single
day, now the elite compete for hundreds of thousands of dollars with young
birds who may never see an old bird race and whose parents cost thousands
themselves. The hobby and small flyer aspect is disappearing. The second
stroke against racing homers is disease. New, and often drug resistant,
pigeon diseases are constantly cropping up and mixing your flock with other
birds on a regular basis can lead to disastrous outbreaks (circovirus,
adenovirus, and the new strain of paramixovirus come to mind).

So, on we move, in search of a backyard hobby that is still a hobby,
requires less financial outlay and equal satisfaction and challenge. This
brings us to the number two most popular competition pigeon (though it may
actually be number one in sheer number of fanciers), the Birmingham Roller.
Supported by a strong National Club and an international competition the
Birmingham Roller provides thousands of fanciers with the opportunity to
test their breeding and training methods at a high level of competition from
their own backyard.

This then might possibly be the bird for us. The breeding challenges of the
Birmingham Roller are phenomenal, with many competitors spending their
entire lives developing a carefully line bred and inbred family of
performers. The primary reason for the incredible difficulty in breeding
competition Birmingham Rollers likely the greatest breeding challenge in
the pigeon world lies in the number of birds necessary for competition. A
competition kit is 15-20 pigeons. That is 15-20 outstanding performers.
Compare that with one bird necessary to win a pigeon race, or the 3-5 birds
flown in Tippler competition. And while this is the greatest challenge of
the roller hobby, it is also a weakness for some. The laws of probability
dictate, that even in the best of inbred families, the production of 15-20
outstanding individuals of approximately the same age requires breeding very
large numbers of young each year. Supporting 10 or 15 pair of stock pigeons
and 60 or more flying birds can take a toll on many peoples space, time, and
bank account. The other challenge of the roller hobby, as with any flying
pigeon, is training the competition birds. Finely tuning a kit of rollers
for competition is truly an art form and a training challenge that many find
lifelong satisfaction in. Herein also, however, the numbers are the pitfall
of the roller. With 20 birds in the competition kit, and concert performance
of the utmost importance, some of the individual interaction between p

This finally brings us to the flying Tippler. For those, like me, who enjoy
careful breeding of performance pigeons and involved training and
conditioning to bring those pigeons to their performance peak all in your
own backyard! The flying Tippler is truly the performance pigeon of choice.
Of this assertion, I have no doubt. And yet, through my many mistakes, I
managed to frustrate and discourage myself to the point where, as I
mentioned previously, I gave up the flying Tippler. It is, once again, my
hope that by presenting these mistakes, after much hindsight and synthesis,
that others will not make them and not become discouraged with these
wonderful little birds.

I will also note, again, in closing this segment that much of the above
reasoning has also been presented by Michael Beat. It does not, however,
hurt to present it again.