Odiaxere Result Zubillaga, Spain 495 miles ST.W headwinds and poss Rain

good morning/evening knackered (whichever it is where you are...lol) ive seen some pictures of pigeons eyes, and i know they would be looked upon as being fantastic racers/breeders etc, but they have belonged to fantails..........so what does that mean ? they can win races ? also if eyesign was more than just a theory, the eysign "experts" would win every race, and only have winners in their lofts........

a few years ago when i restarted with pigeons, an older fancier who spoke to me on another site said " when the eyesign men start to take my pool money every week, then i`ll start believing in eyesign"

having said that, i do like to look at the pigeons eyes, and i entered an eyesign show last season and won 1st, but i wouldnt read too much into it  JMO.........

David wrote:

good morning/evening knackered (whichever it is where you are...lol) ive seen some pictures of pigeons eyes, and i know they would be looked upon as being fantastic racers/breeders etc, but they have belonged to fantails..........so what does that mean ? they can win races ? also if eyesign was more than just a theory, the eysign "experts" would win every race, and only have winners in their lofts........

a few years ago when i restarted with pigeons, an older fancier who spoke to me on another site said " when the eyesign men start to take my pool money every week, then i`ll start believing in eyesign"

having said that, i do like to look at the pigeons eyes, and i entered an eyesign show last season and won 1st, but i wouldnt read too much into it  JMO.........

Fantails have NO homing ability so that is not comparing Like with Like, Scientists have proven that pigeons see or sense the Earths Magnetic field and use this to navigate, they also say that they are pretty sure the sensors are within the eyes of the pigeons.

The other point you make is an age old one trotted out every now and then to try to rubbish eyesign, that if an Eyesign expert can use this eyesign to good effect why doesnt he win every week.

Well again that is another unfair statement for obvious reasons.
The wind conditions on a certain Day, the topography of the Land from a certain racepoint and the most glaringly obvious reason is that a top eyesign man is more likely to be a top pigeon breeder, who says that he or she can look after feed, train, medicate a team of racers to the level required to be dominant more races than not?.

Why cannot any fancier win every week? perhaps because birds are flesh and blood and not machines The more important thing is to develop a family of pigeons that do not get lost from a few miles away the first time it rains a bit and birds that even when they are not in top form they are never far behind the winners (they try every week)

Another thing to remember is that Racing pigeons are a man made creation, bred down from certain crosses of various pigeons by people in the past who bred them to do a job of homing from vast distances and the breeding of these old breeds can be seen within the Eye. Many of the birds racing today have been crossed for speed so many times that the eye has no character and appears flat when you look into it.(its brains have been dismantled)
It doesnt mean the bird cannot win a race when it is fit and race conditions favour it but put that bird in a race of 500 miles or more where the minimum requirement is 14 hours plus on the wing flying on its own for perhaps half of the race distance and you can wave goodbye to it as the transporter pulls away from the club carpark.

Any bird can win a race when conditions favour it on any given day as it just follows my leader and happens to trap faster but not many of these winners breed good consistant birds and occasionally a very good bird. More times than not the parents of these better consistant birds have good looking 3D eyes and the pupil reacts well to sunlight.

morning kev, firstly altho a fantail doesnt have the homing abitity of a racing pigeon, they are still a pigeon, and maybe theyare both bred down from the rock dove ???.and who can say for sure what they see.  it could well be they do see the earths magnetic field, who can say they dont ?
also re the eyesign man not winning certain races down to the wind/weather etc.......i dont see that as an excuse because if they know their eyesign, then they can go into their loft and pick out the bird that wins on windy hard days, or fine blow home days.......

one thing i will say is, pigeon fanciers who experiment with eyesign to control their breeding, can sometimes do more harm than good.....i once asked jack barkel if the physical build/shape of a pigeon can be altered by certain eyes paired togeather, he said yes it can......so whilst a pigeon can have a fantastic eyesign, the body and physical ability is ruined because of fanciers not knowleagable enough about eyesign playing with nature.........

David wrote:

morning kev, firstly altho a fantail doesnt have the homing abitity of a racing pigeon, they are still a pigeon, and maybe theyare both bred down from the rock dove ???.and who can say for sure what they see.  it could well be they do see the earths magnetic field, who can say they dont ?
also re the eyesign man not winning certain races down to the wind/weather etc.......i dont see that as an excuse because if they know their eyesign, then they can go into their loft and pick out the bird that wins on windy hard days, or fine blow home days.......

one thing i will say is, pigeon fanciers who experiment with eyesign to control their breeding, can sometimes do more harm than good.....i once asked jack barkel if the physical build/shape of a pigeon can be altered by certain eyes paired togeather, he said yes it can......so whilst a pigeon can have a fantastic eyesign, the body and physical ability is ruined because of fanciers not knowleagable enough about eyesign playing with nature.........

Morning David, If a fantail could see the Earths magnetic field and fly properly it would be able to home as Scientists have proven now beyond any doubt that Homing Pigeons Do use the Earths magnetic field to Home and that is now a fact.

A fantail was bred down to be pretty and to be looked at like some fancy breeds of dogs, a racing pigeon was bred down for a special purpose (to home from long distances) like some breed s or working dogs also with brains Sheep dogs, Gun dogs etc.

As regards any bird winning a race for anybody if the birds not in good condition and fed correctly for the race in hand it will NOT win.

The greatest pigeon in the world will not win if its overfed and underworked. As regards the shape of a pigeon, you will find that a real practitioner of Eyesign has the intelligence to make the correct pairings, this happens as he or she has the mental capacity to see what shape of bird is the best for he or she for whatever course or conditions they race in.

Birds win in all shapes and sizes as long as they are balanced but some shapes some call heavy deep keel in reality (there is no such thing as a deep keel it means the bird is devoid of some muscles in that area) these are usually rubbish and you would be a fool to mate two such specimens together, birds with pin heads usually rubbish as a pin head houses a tiny brain, birds with long stick legs usually rubbish too.

You will find some fanciers will be doing great and never look at pigeons eye or if they do they do not really know what to look for. But such fanciers that are consistant with their own family of birds year after year are good stock men and a form of natural selection takes place. Most have a stock loft and the birds only stay in there a short while if they do not produce the goods.

Those birds in the stockloft most will have great eyesign and pupils that react well to sunlight. A simple test for yourself or anyone to do is catch your pigeons in a basket and the next time you get some sunshine in sunny Britain, get your jewellers glass out and put it in your right eye, stand in the shade and look into the pigeons left eye, now slowly introduce the eye to the sunlight and see what the pupil appears to do. it should rapidly seem to diminish in size.

You can almost certainly take it to the bank that if the pupil doesnt seem to diminish in size and it stays the same size or doesnt alter much in size when bathed with sunlight that the bird will be lost the first time the going gets tough.

I have done it myself this year with some birds before racing began and to handle them they fell great and look a million dollars but their eyes gave them away , needless to say the birds in question all got lost. This is the very basics of what to begin to see in a birds eye.

Try it out and just make a note of the birds with poor reflex in their eyes race them every week and then see how many you have left by the end of the racing season and compare that to the performance of the birds with pupils that do have great reflex. After you do this you may begin to believe there is something to eyesign

spencerline wrote:

David wrote:

morning kev, firstly altho a fantail doesnt have the homing abitity of a racing pigeon, they are still a pigeon, and maybe theyare both bred down from the rock dove ???.and who can say for sure what they see.  it could well be they do see the earths magnetic field, who can say they dont ?
also re the eyesign man not winning certain races down to the wind/weather etc.......i dont see that as an excuse because if they know their eyesign, then they can go into their loft and pick out the bird that wins on windy hard days, or fine blow home days.......

one thing i will say is, pigeon fanciers who experiment with eyesign to control their breeding, can sometimes do more harm than good.....i once asked jack barkel if the physical build/shape of a pigeon can be altered by certain eyes paired togeather, he said yes it can......so whilst a pigeon can have a fantastic eyesign, the body and physical ability is ruined because of fanciers not knowleagable enough about eyesign playing with nature.........

Morning David, If a fantail could see the Earths magnetic field and fly properly it would be able to home as Scientists have proven now beyond any doubt that Homing Pigeons Do use the Earths magnetic field to Home and that is now a fact.

A fantail was bred down to be pretty and to be looked at like some fancy breeds of dogs, a racing pigeon was bred down for a special purpose (to home from long distances) like some breed s or working dogs also with brains Sheep dogs, Gun dogs etc.

As regards any bird winning a race for anybody if the birds not in good condition and fed correctly for the race in hand it will NOT win.

The greatest pigeon in the world will not win if its overfed and underworked. As regards the shape of a pigeon, you will find that a real practitioner of Eyesign has the intelligence to make the correct pairings, this happens as he or she has the mental capacity to see what shape of bird is the best for he or she for whatever course or conditions they race in.

Birds win in all shapes and sizes as long as they are balanced but some shapes some call heavy deep keel in reality (there is no such thing as a deep keel it means the bird is devoid of some muscles in that area) these are usually rubbish and you would be a fool to mate two such specimens together, birds with pin heads usually rubbish as a pin head houses a tiny brain, birds with long stick legs usually rubbish too.

You will find some fanciers will be doing great and never look at pigeons eye or if they do they do not really know what to look for. But such fanciers that are consistant with their own family of birds year after year are good stock men and a form of natural selection takes place. Most have a stock loft and the birds only stay in there a short while if they do not produce the goods.

Those birds in the stockloft most will have great eyesign and pupils that react well to sunlight. A simple test for yourself or anyone to do is catch your pigeons in a basket and the next time you get some sunshine in sunny Britain, get your jewellers glass out and put it in your right eye, stand in the shade and look into the pigeons left eye, now slowly introduce the eye to the sunlight and see what the pupil appears to do. it should rapidly seem to diminish in size.

You can almost certainly take it to the bank that if the pupil doesnt seem to diminish in size and it stays the same size or doesnt alter much in size when bathed with sunlight that the bird will be lost the first time the going gets tough.

I have done it myself this year with some birds before racing began and to handle them they fell great and look a million dollars but their eyes gave them away , needless to say the birds in question all got lost. This is the very basics of what to begin to see in a birds eye.

Try it out and just make a note of the birds with poor reflex in their eyes race them every week  and then see how many you have left by the end of the racing season and compare that to the performance of the birds with pupils that do have great reflex. After you do this you may begin to believe there is something to eyesign

This topic in a nice way  is becoming interesting etc. Much of it is above my head so to speak:roll:  1 point that baffles me thou ????? which I read on the topic "please explain" if one looks in the eye for eyesign you can tell the brainpower/intelligence of the pigeon "How". Much to confusing for someone like me who works on the Kiss theory. Very true thou what was said about the small/large pupil etc & I'm a great believer in that side of the subject, I have never used an eyeglass as such & I never rate an eye in the loft etc only outside in the full sun. Being one on the simple side of life I never rated that as such (The Pupil) as part of the  eyesign theory etc. Without a doubt, at least in my view the health of a pigeon can be accessed by the eye,so for that fact  alone, it is worth studying etc.

Knackered wrote:

This topic in a nice way  is becoming interesting etc. Much of it is above my head so to speak:roll:  1 point that baffles me thou ????? which I read on the topic "please explain" if one looks in the eye for eyesign you can tell the brainpower/intelligence of the pigeon "How". Much to confusing for someone like me who works on the Kiss theory. Very true thou what was said about the small/large pupil etc & I'm a great believer in that side of the subject, I have never used an eyeglass as such & I never rate an eye in the loft etc only outside in the full sun. Being one on the simple side of life I never rated that as such (The Pupil) as part of the  eyesign theory etc. Without a doubt, at least in my view the health of a pigeon can be accessed by the eye,so for that fact  alone, it is worth studying etc.

Hi Knackered, when I said you can see the pigeons brainpower I meant its ability to home from long distances on its own and to have a great chance of passing on that trait to its offspring. The outside of the eye or the 5th circle or Healthring should be wide as possible and dark in colour unless the bird is a Pied or red when it will be lighter in colour. This is the blood supply of the bird.
You have to look at a birds eye in Sunlight or an LED light can be used but never a halogen light or a light that gets hot for obvious reasons in not wanting to harm the birds eye.
A jewelers eyeglass must be used and never a magnifying glass as again you could burn the birds eye by accident. I am more interested in potential breeders so I look for a bird with a good 5th circle with an iris full of mountainous looking regions and then a step down to the circle that surrounds the pupil which is called the Circle of correlation and I like that to be wide with plenty of lines or character in there, lines that go around the circle denote distance flying ability and lines that go across the width of this circle may denote speed or the ability to handle a tail wind. Hopefully there I see another step down to The pupil itself.
I like to be as round and to go as small as possible when the light hits the eye this is very important especially in a long distance bird and then in some birds if you look at the pupil itself you can see another ring usually a brown colour called the circle of adaptation and this is another good sign.
The actual colour of the birds eye is not important. I have not clocked a bird with poor eyesign in a race around or further than 500 miles. Overall I look for an eye that looks 3D read from the outside of the eye in and it should have a funnel effect. The eye in my avatar is a good example of a fantastic breeding eye but they can come in all colours.

spencerline wrote:

Knackered wrote:

This topic in a nice way  is becoming interesting etc. Much of it is above my head so to speak:roll:  1 point that baffles me thou ????? which I read on the topic "please explain" if one looks in the eye for eyesign you can tell the brainpower/intelligence of the pigeon "How". Much to confusing for someone like me who works on the Kiss theory. Very true thou what was said about the small/large pupil etc & I'm a great believer in that side of the subject, I have never used an eyeglass as such & I never rate an eye in the loft etc only outside in the full sun. Being one on the simple side of life I never rated that as such (The Pupil) as part of the  eyesign theory etc. Without a doubt, at least in my view the health of a pigeon can be accessed by the eye,so for that fact  alone, it is worth studying etc.

Hi Knackered, when I said you can see the pigeons brainpower I meant its ability to home from long distances on its own and to have a great chance of passing on that trait to its offspring. The outside of the eye or the 5th circle or Healthring should be wide as possible and dark in colour unless the bird is a Pied or red when it will be lighter in colour. This is the blood supply of the bird.
You have to look at a birds eye in Sunlight or an LED light can be used but never a halogen light or a light that gets hot for obvious reasons in not wanting to harm the birds eye.
A jewelers eyeglass must be used and never a magnifying glass as again you could burn the birds eye by accident. I am more interested in potential breeders so I look for a bird with a good 5th circle with an iris full of mountainous looking regions and then a step down to the circle that surrounds the pupil which is called the Circle of correlation and I like that to be wide with plenty of lines or character in there, lines that go around the circle denote distance flying ability and lines that go across the width of this circle may denote speed or the ability to handle a tail wind. Hopefully there I see another step down to The pupil itself.
I like to be as round and to go as small as possible when the light hits the eye this is very important especially in a long distance bird and then in some birds if you look at the pupil itself you can see another ring usually a brown colour called the circle of adaptation and this is another good sign.
The actual colour of the birds eye is not important. I have not clocked a bird with poor eyesign in a race around or further than 500 miles. Overall I look for an eye that looks 3D read from the outside of the eye in and it should have a funnel effect. The eye in my avatar is a good example of a fantastic breeding eye but they can come in all colours.

Interesting read etc But !!!!! I will just leave it up to the next generation , whoever they may be "to fight the fight" I'm to old now. I will ask 3 questions thou if I may ??????? how far do you think you could get a half fantail to fly "Distance wise". how do you rate a bull eye in stock/racing & how do you rate odd eyes stock/racing. Any reply's will be of interest.

Blame it on old age (4th question) but what time is it now in Portugal, I'm curious.

Knackered wrote:

spencerline wrote:

Knackered wrote:

This topic in a nice way  is becoming interesting etc. Much of it is above my head so to speak:roll:  1 point that baffles me thou ????? which I read on the topic "please explain" if one looks in the eye for eyesign you can tell the brainpower/intelligence of the pigeon "How". Much to confusing for someone like me who works on the Kiss theory. Very true thou what was said about the small/large pupil etc & I'm a great believer in that side of the subject, I have never used an eyeglass as such & I never rate an eye in the loft etc only outside in the full sun. Being one on the simple side of life I never rated that as such (The Pupil) as part of the  eyesign theory etc. Without a doubt, at least in my view the health of a pigeon can be accessed by the eye,so for that fact  alone, it is worth studying etc.

Hi Knackered, when I said you can see the pigeons brainpower I meant its ability to home from long distances on its own and to have a great chance of passing on that trait to its offspring. The outside of the eye or the 5th circle or Healthring should be wide as possible and dark in colour unless the bird is a Pied or red when it will be lighter in colour. This is the blood supply of the bird.
You have to look at a birds eye in Sunlight or an LED light can be used but never a halogen light or a light that gets hot for obvious reasons in not wanting to harm the birds eye.
A jewelers eyeglass must be used and never a magnifying glass as again you could burn the birds eye by accident. I am more interested in potential breeders so I look for a bird with a good 5th circle with an iris full of mountainous looking regions and then a step down to the circle that surrounds the pupil which is called the Circle of correlation and I like that to be wide with plenty of lines or character in there, lines that go around the circle denote distance flying ability and lines that go across the width of this circle may denote speed or the ability to handle a tail wind. Hopefully there I see another step down to The pupil itself.
I like to be as round and to go as small as possible when the light hits the eye this is very important especially in a long distance bird and then in some birds if you look at the pupil itself you can see another ring usually a brown colour called the circle of adaptation and this is another good sign.
The actual colour of the birds eye is not important. I have not clocked a bird with poor eyesign in a race around or further than 500 miles. Overall I look for an eye that looks 3D read from the outside of the eye in and it should have a funnel effect. The eye in my avatar is a good example of a fantastic breeding eye but they can come in all colours.

Interesting read etc But !!!!! I will just leave it up to the next generation , whoever they may be "to fight the fight" I'm to old now. I will ask 3 questions thou if I may ??????? how far do you think you could get a half fantail to fly "Distance wise". how do you rate a bull eye in stock/racing & how do you rate odd eyes stock/racing. Any reply's will be of interest.


Blame it on old age (4th question) but what time is it now in Portugal, I'm curious.

Hi Knackered, Your first question I really do not have an answer to but it would be interesting to find out, lol Bull eyes are the same as any other eye except they have NO pigment and they can be fantastic at stock they are just a little harder to see into.
I photograph them and then lighten them on the computer to see what they contain, as regards odd eyes in my opinion it would depend on how the eyes looked and reacted to Sunlight under the Loupe rather than the fact that they were odd.
I know a lot of knowledgable older fanciers that revere this trait in a bird but I follow Myrons teachings and just the fact the eyes are odd is not enough on its own.

spencerline wrote:

Knackered wrote:

spencerline wrote:

Knackered wrote:

This topic in a nice way  is becoming interesting etc. Much of it is above my head so to speak:roll:  1 point that baffles me thou ????? which I read on the topic "please explain" if one looks in the eye for eyesign you can tell the brainpower/intelligence of the pigeon "How". Much to confusing for someone like me who works on the Kiss theory. Very true thou what was said about the small/large pupil etc & I'm a great believer in that side of the subject, I have never used an eyeglass as such & I never rate an eye in the loft etc only outside in the full sun. Being one on the simple side of life I never rated that as such (The Pupil) as part of the  eyesign theory etc. Without a doubt, at least in my view the health of a pigeon can be accessed by the eye,so for that fact  alone, it is worth studying etc.

Hi Knackered, when I said you can see the pigeons brainpower I meant its ability to home from long distances on its own and to have a great chance of passing on that trait to its offspring. The outside of the eye or the 5th circle or Healthring should be wide as possible and dark in colour unless the bird is a Pied or red when it will be lighter in colour. This is the blood supply of the bird.
You have to look at a birds eye in Sunlight or an LED light can be used but never a halogen light or a light that gets hot for obvious reasons in not wanting to harm the birds eye.
A jewelers eyeglass must be used and never a magnifying glass as again you could burn the birds eye by accident. I am more interested in potential breeders so I look for a bird with a good 5th circle with an iris full of mountainous looking regions and then a step down to the circle that surrounds the pupil which is called the Circle of correlation and I like that to be wide with plenty of lines or character in there, lines that go around the circle denote distance flying ability and lines that go across the width of this circle may denote speed or the ability to handle a tail wind. Hopefully there I see another step down to The pupil itself.
I like to be as round and to go as small as possible when the light hits the eye this is very important especially in a long distance bird and then in some birds if you look at the pupil itself you can see another ring usually a brown colour called the circle of adaptation and this is another good sign.
The actual colour of the birds eye is not important. I have not clocked a bird with poor eyesign in a race around or further than 500 miles. Overall I look for an eye that looks 3D read from the outside of the eye in and it should have a funnel effect. The eye in my avatar is a good example of a fantastic breeding eye but they can come in all colours.

Interesting read etc But !!!!! I will just leave it up to the next generation , whoever they may be "to fight the fight" I'm to old now. I will ask 3 questions thou if I may ??????? how far do you think you could get a half fantail to fly "Distance wise". how do you rate a bull eye in stock/racing & how do you rate odd eyes stock/racing. Any reply's will be of interest.


Blame it on old age (4th question) but what time is it now in Portugal, I'm curious.

Hi Knackered, Your first question I really do not have an answer to but it would be interesting to find out, lol Bull eyes are the same as any other eye except they have NO pigment and they can be fantastic at stock they are just a little harder to see into.
I photograph them and then lighten them on the computer to see what they contain, as regards odd eyes in my opinion it would depend on how the eyes looked and reacted to Sunlight under the Loupe rather than the fact that they were odd.
I know a lot of knowledgable older fanciers that revere this trait in a bird but I follow Myrons teachings and just the fact the eyes are odd is not enough on its own.

Hi Kev !!! It's nice I can answer something for you etc . I/2 fantail 375 miles was the best I could do. Bred in the race loft of one of my droppers & a race cock. Funny thing was, differant blokes used to pick her out the unit & say how nice she was, lovely black pied hen. I never had the heart to tell the blokes what the mother was etc I just smiled to myself & took the accolades . Lost her at the 400 mile but it was a bit of fun one could say. Bull eyes I quite like thou it's difficult to get the same look about them unfortunately like a normal eye, when they tell you they are on fire & fit etc to race. I think Fleming always said a bull eye has as it's roots, a pearl eye etc. True or false I really wouldn't know or care. Could be another assumption of his ??? that's up there in the clouds with the fairies . Never bred many odd eyes & they don't inspire me somehow, thou I have 19 year old cock & one his last youngsters was in that category. If I ever get around to breeding again I might see what he can breed. One would hope ???????? something better than my fantail etc.
*****

Hi Knackered thats very interesting about your fantail experiment and I am very surprised that it homed from well over 300 miles but its good to know that this has been done so it is possible.
We only learn things by trying new things and experimenting, I bet you could tell me many things about racingpigeons that would help me to improve our birds performance because we all have interesting facts to tell that are are individual to us.
I am always open to ideas and to scientific facts and this is the only way we can move forwards.
Myron has proven to me that what he says has great merit and it has aready shown in the results of the progeny bred from his selected pairings made by eyesign only.
I have also proven it to myself by my only 2 ever purchases made (very cheaply) only by eyesign already showing in their first 2 rounds (one bird here in Portugal) the other in the UK breeding birds far and above what anyone would call average.
Thanks for your interest in our racing here in the Algarve , Portugal.

I must say these's posts are very interesting which i read with interest

But with regards the fantail situation there was a film called "Through the looking glass" which was narrated by Tony Cowan with Brian May being interviewed

But there was another fancier who was also in the film and he also experimented with a fantail/tumbler which also flew 400+ miles to the persons loft in the north of england