Type
(Internet Published) Feb 2001
In September 2000 while on holiday in the county of Cornwall, England I was
shown some small Tippler/Tumbler types of pigeons that were typical of what
is known as the small Cobby type. Short legged, stout and with tails
protruding only half an inch beyond the wing tips. Beaks were rather shorter
than the beaks or the usual Rollers and Tipplers. Wing span was considerably
shorter than I expected for a pigeon even of this size and structure. In
flight I noticed a faster wing beat than that of Tipplers and Rollers. They
were in quite a range of colours and overall extremely attractive little
pigeons. Little was known about their origin other than that they had been
kept at liberty for many years locally.
Personally I had never seen anything quite like them. I didn't see them
tumbling but was told that some of them did.
Now a lot the tumbler type show pigeons, both long and short faced, have
this Cobby requirement in their standard for show pigeons. Many years ago I
was asked to accept delivery of some Viennese short faced Tumblers for the
purpose of raising some young ones from them. I used some Racing pigeons as
feeders and soon had a few young ones. I trained and flew them along with
some Rollers that I had.
The result was that they kept up with the Rollers even at great height, but
I never saw any kind of tumbling. After the moulting out I found that these
young ones had become very long cast and much less Cobby than the originals.
Their tails protruded about 1 1/2 inches beyond the wing tips and their
beaks were not quite as short as the originals. In fact I was quite pleased
with them but the owner was not. In effect I had ruined them he said! We
both concluded that the change of environment, daily flying and the rich
protein diet given to their foster parents, right though the raising period,
was responsible to the structural change. The owner said that these new
issues produced by me were very much like the old type of Viennese Ganzels,
long extinct.
It is therefore remarkable that these Cornish pigeons retained their Cobby
structure in spite of being kept for many years at liberty. The problem with
theories, statistics, and conclusion is that insufficient information is
available and the little that it is, is extremely doubtful. What men say and
what they do are very often two different things!