Some more eyes

DAVID wrote:

hi mark, do you consider the eyes when selecting your pairings .......? or what do you consider, best to best ...?

Yes i do David, easier for us cos we have a family, but i always try to pair opposites, as in shape and colour

and definatey dont breed off any "flat" eyes even if these are good racers, have had birds in the past with flat eyes with 6 x 1st prizes but couldnt breed a bird to get a card never mind win

All winners dont breed winners and not all poor racers/duffers are crap

i understand what your saying re breeding off a flat eye and that even if it was a winner you wouldnt.............but i would emagine a bird with 6 1st prizes was still worth breeding off surely ? maybe it could have been the partner he was paired to which was not up to scratch maybe ?

i have heard of birds which have won 1st in a blow home or an easy day which were just lucky and not worth a light, but a consistant winner must be worth breeding from surely ? or am i going about it wrong ? obviously you know a lot more than me and will have a good reason for your decision.

DAVID wrote:

chris, i used to be all for eyesign but have realised its a very minor point to consider........if the bird has flown or bred well then that is more inportant than looking at its eye.

would have to agree, with me being new to pigeons, i have a long way to go , just been given two pairs of racers to start a family with, the guy who gave me was trying to explain the eye on one of the cocks as a good eye, but was just greatfull for the start, didnt take much notice,

thats right chris, dont bog yourself down at the moment with eyes....learn how to keep the pigeons and to feed/manage them correctly, and enjoy them.

the eys will be of some inportance to someone like lightening(mark) because as he says, they are a family and he will know what, if any are capable of breeding or racing well.

best to agree with this one, just started crawling never mind run before you can walk

thats right chris, i re-started two years ago and this season just gone was to be my first racing and i just coudnt get it right, everything went wrong because i think i did try to run before i could walk and expected too much from my birds and myself....... best listen.read and ask questions if there is something you dont understand. im always asking.........

Mark and David agree with your comments

From me and i like eyesign (but still don't know anything) for a good breeding eye l like to see deep vallys

The best way to say get a hand full of gravel and what you see is like what i like to see in the eye (not the gravel) but the gravel effect

we need malcolms views on eyes don, do you remember his posts on it .....?

A pigeon that do not see well, is a dead pigeon.
If visual qeues were a part of the homing ability, a pigeon with bad eyesight would not make it ,to the loft.
A pigeon with small pupils means, a pigeon with exellent eyesight.
I think there is little truth in the eyesign theory , after all it is just a theory.
A fact is every body like a nice bright eye with mountains and valleys, regardless the colour ,yellow , pearl or bull eyes.

hi niel, inclined to agree with you about the eys.........i think the fancier who does use eyesign to breed with would probably get the same results if they didnt use it.........

Now your going back some David

Must say some people like it and some don't but it is everyone to there own to be honest

But i do like eyesign (even if i know nothing about it) even after 25 years trying

the thing that gets me tho don is these "experts" in the weeklies who evaluate a pigeons eye only describe what the eye looks like and they form their opinion knowing what, if anything, the bird has won or bred...........let them look at all the birds on basketing night and pick the winner, then they can say they know what they are talking about eh ....?

David i will agree with you 100%

right though isnt it don.............

I agree David. Have they ever tried that? Would be interesting to see....

never heard of it been done alex............. nor likely to either i`ll bet.

DAVID wrote:

never heard of it been done alex............. nor likely to either i`ll bet.

......And you know why they wont do it.

Because I would bet they are wrong.

I went to see some birds recently of a local fancier and believe me he wins big, he asked me to bring my eye glass with me and have a look at the birds, not sure if it was luck or jugement but all the pairings I looked at for him , he had already paired what I would say the right way for me as eye sign, he never looks at the eyes but had a nack for putting the right birds together, the janssen brothers never studied the eyse but bred many champions. My conclusion is that born breeders are just that and dont need theorys, also as another interesting point I handled a bird that had won many firsts, both inland and up to 550 miles, it had topped sections, combine top 5, and would have won the national had he entered it, After studying the eye, I had to admit being honest.. if it was in a sale I would not have picked it out by the eyesign.

hi martyn. if you had your best two racers and were going to breed from them.......if there eyes were not what you would consider good would you still breed from them or put them to a more suitable eyesign...?

i know very little on eyesign or better still nothing. all so dont like putting the same eyes together.dont like the idea of breeding birds with flat eyes or eyes that are washed out through inbreeding.iv never let eyesign get the better of me but i do think eyesign works if you know what your doing but i dont but i do have my own way with pairing birds by there eyes.