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West of England Tumblers – Page 38 – Purebred PIGEON
Breed of the Issue - West of England Tumblers
Colors inWests
By Josh Zilles
T
he West of England Tumbler has become a well-known breed around the
world as having some of the best colors in any breed of pigeon. The West
has become America’s Color Breed because of the many vibrant colors that
exist in the breed and there are always new colors being developed.
In the National West of England Tumbler Club standard each bird can be
awarded 10 points for color and all colors need to be as follows from the standard
of perfection:
“Rich, sound, and lustrous in color throughout. Even shades, well extend-
ed into the roots of the quills. Full bright plumage with an abundance of
sheen. All birds should have clean and bright color without smut, dirtiness,
or sootiness. There should be no yellowish, orangish, or reddish beaks or
eye ceres. All beak colors, other than flesh colored, may show a gradation of
color from light to dark or dark
to light. Stained, where used in
beak color descriptions, refers to
splotches, streaks, or irregular
patches of color.”
This clarification in the stan-
dard is what helps our breed to strive
for the highest quality of color.
We also have many colors in
the process of being developed and
are on the verge of being a showable
color at club meets. Terry Brech-
bill is in the process of developing
ice color in the West of England
Tumbler. Anyone that knows the
difficulty of introducing ice color
into a breed of pigeons know the
work that Terry has had. He has
already worked multiple years on
this project and is slowly getting
closer to having a high-quality family of ice colored West of England Tumblers.
Tony Cardoza is also working on multiple color projects including shield
marks and has had a few at shows over the years. This has also been a big under-
taking and Tony has made some great progress.
Bob Christman and other breeders are working on multiple other color projects
to expand the number of colors in the West of England Tumbler family of colors.
While new colors are exciting, we have multiple breeders that are always
looking to improve our current colors and make them better and more vibrant
than before. The West of England has over 36 colors with some coming in multi-
ple factors like baldhead, pattern, self and mottle.
A few years ago Bill Henderson helped the West breed by taking some aver-
age quality Lavender West of England tumblers and crossing them into his family
of blacks to produce a winning line of lavenders in any show he took them to.
Jay Turner has been working with his favorite color (Red) for many years now
and developed a family of rich red colored West of England Tumblers that are
hard for anyone to beat when showing against him.
Corinne - Black
Black Baldhead - Brian McCormich
Tony Cardoza - Shield Marked
Andalusian - Jim Vines