Steve Agent

Steve is the fancier you may have heard about from Maryland, USA. Yep, that guy. There are actually several Birmingham Roller fanciers from Maryland, many of which are part of the club Steve co-founded; Maryland True Spinners. They seem to be doing very good out there. An all around great man and positive influence to many and the hobby in general, Steve was kind enough to agree to be the first Featured Fancier on this page and we are grateful to him for that.

Sometimes referred to as ‘Secret Agent Spinners’, he has been working with his current family of rollers for 16 years but has been involved with rollers since he was very young. A red mottle hen banded NBRC 486 2000 has played a huge roll in the development and evolution of his current family and is now considered his foundation hen along with a cock he calls “The Big Unit”. He affirms that the key to having good rollers is selecting them and training them properly.

 

 

Q&A

Steven Agent, 40-60, Maryland, USA.
As a kid at the age of six. I was introduced to the birds by a cousin by the name of Michael Sims. That’s when the love affair began.
The sheer love of the Birmingham Roller pigeon. The performance and the pursuit in the ultimate performers.
I have a contingent of birds that goes back to Norm Reed 16 years ago.
I would have to say a red mottle hen from Norm Reed, band number NBRC 486 2000. She is my foundation hen.
Speed, style, kit placement, frequency and then duration and then depth in that order. Depth is least of my concern because I feel it’s grossly overrated. Most people look at a bird falling a good distance and never consider the former mentioned.
Short, cobby, apple body, wide chest, but type doesn’t roll. I like the bird that’s doing the best in the air. Every one that’s slim, muscular build, at 6’9″ cannot play basketball.
I am very basic when it comes to color. My birds a predominantly blue (check, bars, w/f, spread, grizzled and bald heads), ash reds (check, bars, spread, w/f and bald heads) and recessive reds (mottles, self and w/f’s). There is a little dilute floating around, but not much. I am a firm believer in hard and soft colors or feathers. I consider only the blue series birds as hard feathers and all else soft. In my experience, I found that the blue birds are the faster spinners whereas the soft colors were more frequent. In an attempt to balance them out, I breed hard to soft and thus far it has worked out great for me and my family of birds.
To be able to reproduce itself or better.
As a kid, getting my birds stolen. At this stage of the game, the BOP’s.
I feed my birds a premix feed that has 11% protein it. Eight days before the fly I reduce the feed by 50%. The amount of feed stay that low for 5 days. Meanwhile I continue to fly them. By the fifth day they will only fly for about 15 minutes, but work at an very high rate. When they come in on the fifth day I give them the full amount of feed again. The sixth day they will probably fly about 17 minutes and still work very hard and again they get full rations again. The 7th day I rest them and give full rations again. On fly day they get up work just as they did on the 5th day, but they will fly for about 35 to 45 minutes.
Search as many high-level flyers as possible and visit them. Listen to what they say and look for the results in the air. Most pigeon guys are used car salesmen. One can get their mouths to say anything, but can they back it up is the question. Once you are able to find what you are looking for, work with just that family and ask the guy or person you got them from for advice on how to breed and fly them. In other words, don’t buy a Jaguar and ask a Buick guy how to get the best out of your Jaguar.