The German Roller is also known as the Hartz Roller or Hartz Mountain canary and prized for it’s beautiful song. They are the master singers of the canary world and are bred and shown solely for their song. German Rollers should sing with their beaks closed.

The Roller originated from canaries lost at sea after a Spanish ship headed to Italy wrecked off the northern coast of Morocco in 1842. They eventually made their way into Germany. Although it was illegal to keep pets at this time in Germany peasants from the remote Hartz Mountains smuggled some into their homes (and into their hearts) where despite the poor times they were carefully cared for, bred, and flourished. Many were traded and sold on the black market for needed goods thus securing their future popularity. Amazing isn’t it? These peasants with little or no aviculture experience managed not only to rescue these shipwrecked canaries but through selective breeding produce the forefathers of  the German Rollers so treasured today for their song quality. By the nineteenth century the Roller canary had become so popular that merchants brought them to England and later they were exported into other countries including the United States.

The Roller is one of the main varieties of song canary breeds. A song canary is bred for the quality and type of song it sings. Unlike the color bred and  type canaries, the Roller is not bred for shape nor posture but strictly for it’s song quality. That is not saying they do not need to be of sound conformation and health, but rather they are allowed to vary in size, shape, and color. It is the beautiful song which separates the premium stock from the average song canary.

All cock canaries can and will sing regardless of type but the Roller canary song is a special trained song divided into thirteen passages perfected by generations of selective breeding. The ability to mimic was used to train the Roller’s longer more tonal song heard today. This song has passed down from generation to generation until it is now an inbred trait. If fact Rollers are one of the few canaries which no longer mimic the song of other canaries but rather sing as their type are suppose to sing without any training. Their song pattern has a wider range of tones and extension of range not achieved in the normal canary’s song. This is not saying that Rollers are not trained to improve on the quality of their song, only that they have a natural song pattern that with careful selection and training can put them in the top of their class in the show ring. In fact it has been stated that to be successful with Roller canaries the breeder must have a good ear for different notes and tones.