eyesign real or fake

[Guest]

hello and i would like members to please tell me how to spot a sprinter , how to spot a long distance bird and all the other things through eyesign i have raced pigeons for a while but never really bothered to look into eyesign and a complete novice when it comes to it alot of local pigeon fanciers belive in it however alot also say it is all a load of rubbish(eyesign) so im looking for the forum members to kindly report back to me about it

 

 

all the best paul carter

[PIGEON_MAN]

HI CARTER,I CAN DEFINATLY SAY THAT EYESIGN IS NOT A FAKE ALLTHOUGH IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT FOR ME TO EXPLAIN IT TO SOMEONE ELSE.I HAVE ALLWAYS BEEN INTERESTED IN EYESIGN EVER SINCE I STARTED RACING OVER 35 YEARS AGO ESPESCIALLY FOR BREEDING,RACING EYES ARE SOMETHING DIFFERENT AND I HAVE NOT BOTHERED TO MUCH WITH THAT BUT FOR BREEDING I AM SURE THAT THE BIRDS EYES MUST BE  WELL MATCHED TO BREED WINNERS,I DONT CARE WHAT THE BIRD AS WON RACING IF IT HASNT GOT A GOOD BREEDERS EYE OR MATCH UP WITH ANOTHER EYE I DONT BREED OFF IT.I HONESTLY THINK THAT A LOT OF YOUNG BIRD LOSSES ARE BECAUSE FANCIERS ARE BREEDING OFF BIRDS THAT HAVE PEDIGREES AS LONG AS YOUR ARM OR THEY HAVE DONE WELL RACING BUT I DONT GO ALONG WIYH THAT.SORRY TO KEEP GOING ON BUT I WOULD LIKE JUST TO TELL YOU ABOUT A PIGEON SALE I WENT TO EARLIER ON IN THE YEAR .A OLD FANCIER PAST AWAY AND HIS CLUB HELD A SALE OF THE BIRDS,THERE WERE ABOUT 60 OR 70 BIRDS THERE SOME HE HAD PAYED A LOT OF MONEY FOR ALLTHOUGH HE HAD NOT DONE MUCH GOOD RACING THEM,AS IT WAS A SUNDAY MORNING I THOUGHT I WOULD GO ALONG JUST TO HAVE A LOOK ALLTHOUGH I DIDNT REALLY WANT ANY BIRDS,I WENT THROUGH ALL THOSE BIRDS WITH JUST A EYE SIGN GLASS AND PICKED JUST ONE BIRD THAT I THOUGHT HAD THE BEST BREEDERS EYE THERE, THERE WAS NO INFORMATION WITH THE BIRD SO ALL I HAD TO GO ON WAS THE FACT THAT I THOUGHT THE EYE WAS GOOD.I LIKED THIS BIRD SO MUCH THAT I STAYED FOR THE SALE AND COULD NOT BELIEVE MY LUCK AS I GOT IT FOR £25.I PAIRED THIS COCK TO A YEARLING HEN WHICH I THOUGHT WOULD GO WELL WITH IT( ONLY BY EYESIGN)THE HEN HADNT DONE ANY GOOD AS A YOUNGSTER BUT I HAD KEPT HER AS SHE HAD FLEW MOST OF THE PROGRAMME,IBRED 2 YOUNGSTERS OFF THEM AND THIS IS WHAT THEY HAVE DONE,THE HEN AS WON 2 YOUNGBIRD RACES  AND BEEN 7th FED,AND THE COCK AS BEEN 2nd IN THE CLUB THEY HAVE ALSO WON 3 LOTS OF POOL AND NOMINATION MONEY,NOT TO BAD OFF TWO PIGEONS THAT WERE JUST PAIRED UP ON THEIR EYES ONLY.

[jimmy white]

ive never been one for eyesign, probably because i dont know much about it, and realy never had an interest in itBUT   brian may was in my house one time ,so we basketed 1 national winner   1   2nd national winner acouple of birds that had won short races and half a dozen rubish and to my amazement he was allmost spot on, he even said that one of the birds was inbred [which was in fact daughter to son,which he didnt know] and would score at the distance, the following year it did, i was gobsmacked to say the least, mind you the photograph of the 2nd nat winner was above his head, but to be fair he was as close as you could get, p.s  im still not a beleiver.....but    jimmy

[Guest shadow]

Personally I do not put a lot of faith in eyesign the only thing I do in relation to looking in the eyes,  is I try not to pair together birds that have the same coloured eyes.  As long as the eye is clear and bright that will do for me. One eye sign man came to my loft and looked at a D.ch hen and predicted it would get lost from 60 miles. The same bird went on to win 1st club 3rd fed from nevers as a yearling and scored 5 times from the same point in later years.

[Guest]

Carter, I think it always helps if you approach something with an open mind - something inside usually clicks and says 'well, yes makes sense, could be or 'not in a month of Sundays'.

Personally, I don't know of any person - pigeon person or otherwise, who makes a choice to purchase anything based on just a single attribute. The whole surely has to appeal to us before we make that choice - yep, this one's definitely for me.

I note what you say Pigeon_Man about making a choice based solely on the bird's eyes. But did you? If it was lying upside down in the cage with its feet stuck up in the air would you even have bothered to stop? Bit outrageous way to try and get my point over I know, not to ridicule you in any way but just to stress my point: you actually saw / felt the whole bird and got an idea of its temperament too all of which must have had an effect on your subconscious mind long BEFORE you had a chance to study its eyes. Perhaps the eye was your icing on the cake - the last bit of the jigsaw and the 'deciding' factor rather than the first?  

Anyway Good choice Pigeon_Man - however way you did it!!

[Guest Doostalker]

I am an agnostic when it comes to eye sign. I watched a video on eyesign a few years ago and found it embarrassingly naive. It showed photos of eyes of the mentally ill and drew correllation with good racing pigeons. I was put off the subject immediately. However, some of my friends, whose judgement I would value,  firmly believe in it, but I think it is just another way of assessing birds and should never be taken in isolation. I have just started reading "The Secrets if Eye Sign" by SWE Bishop, and some of what is in there seems to be at odds with what people have been telling me about eye sign in the past. I suppose it is all down to interpretation, but it would be folly to use eyesign alone as the sole method of assessing the quality of your stock.

My partner whom I fly with in another Fed told me that the first bird home from a very hard yb race a few weeks ago was one I bred for the partnership, and which he had considered to be useless, as it was rather small (so were it's parents) and had the eye of a streeter!! However, it was always there from the training tosses, so he decided it was worth a try. If he had been using eyesign alone it probably wouldn't have been.

[Guest]

I was never as believer in eyesign until I met Jack Barkel from Ryhope and South Africa.  Jack learned all his expertise from Mr. Bishop.  To say I was amazed when he visited our lofts was an understatement.  I have one bird Motown Missile who is a Double hall of Fame Young Bird, Jack didn't erven know the colour of the bird and he picked him out from a big group of birds from 10 ft. away.  On his second visit to us, he graded by eyesign nearly 600 birds in one day sat at our dining room table. That was an experience I will never forget.  He actually told flyers how many times the bird had won, how many winners it bred and even in some cases what family the bird was from and it's ancestors Several None believers were converted to believers that day

 

[Guest]

Hyacinth and Doostalker: SWE Bishop was the racing pigeon gazette's 'Old Hand'. He penned a prolific number of books and articles for the Gazette in the 1960's. He also developed and marketed his own pigeon specifics still available today.

Jack Barkel wouldn't have just picked up eyesign theory from Bishop - he would have learned all the tools Bishop had available and would probably have picked up a few pointers enabling him to clock the loft's likeliest candidate as soon as he clapped eyes on it. A modern conjurer's trick perhaps?

[Guest]

Don't think it's a trick Bruno, more likely Genius

[Guest slugmonkey]

I don't think anyone is capable of determining a pigeons worth solely on eyesign but I also don't belive a lot of things I hear on basketing night I do belive some guys can walk in a loft and pick out the best birds there at will, I have wittnessed several of these guys in action and it amazes me how someone can just instinctively know good from bad I like to think that in my loft they are all so good that it confuses them ( LOL )

[Guest Doostalker]

Bruno, I knew that SWE Bishop was Old Hand, I remember reading his articles as a boy in the early 50's.

 

Slug, totally agree with you. So much garbage is spoken by so many, but when you come across the real expert it is a revelation. And usually they are the quiet self effacing types who simply get on with the job in hand, but will always help out when asked.

 

I am a firm believer that you have to get the birds that will react and work well within your particular management style and time you have available. Birds that are great to one man might not do well in the hands of another who has a totally different approach etc. Then the birds and the guy can be both branded as useless because fancier no 2 could not do anything with them, and usually he goes to extremes in letting everyone know the birds he got from so and so were c**p. If he had taken the time to go back to the donor and asked advice, and listened and executed that advice things could have been much different.

[PIGEON_MAN]

BRUNO, I CAN HONESTLY SAY THAT I SELECTED THAT PIGEON ON ITS EYE ONLY.I DO NOT HAVE ANY FADS ABOUT HOW A PIGEON LOOKS,FEELS OR EVEN THE COLOUR OF IT BUT I MOST DEFINATLY CHOOSE STOCK PIGEONS ON THEIR EYE ONLY.OBVIOUSLY IF A BIRD WAS RIDDLED WITH DISEASE I WOULD HAVE SECOND THOUGHTS BUT EVEN THEN IF I THOUGHT I COULD CLEAR IT UP AND I THOUGHT  THE EYE WAS THAT GOOD I WOULD STILL BUY IT.YOU DONT FIND MANY GOOD BREEDING EYED PIGEONS COME ON TO THE MARKET, AS I SAID I CONSIDERED THAT THIS ONE WAS THE BEST BY FAR OUT OF THE 60 OR 70 THAT WERE ON SHOW ALLTHOUGH THERE WERE BIRDS THERE THAT HAD PEDIGREES AS LONG AS YOUR ARM AND HAD COST 2 OR 3 HUNDRED POUNDS BUT TO ME THEY DID NOT HAVE THE EYE.

[Guest]

thanks all you forum members for your opinians ive recently read some books on it and i can say im preety confident on all the basics and what a breeders and racers (long distance and sprinters) and all the qualitys they need to be super breeders and so on, ive still honestly got to say id never ever judge on any thing or for anything on its eye alone.

 

all the best

paul carter!!!!!

[Guest]

Paul

 

what I look for in a sprinter is the position of the humorous bone. If the bone is at least one fingers width from the body with the wing extended the bird is in with a chance, also I look for a step in the wing, sprinters should have a step, if our van Reets don't have one we trim about 1/4 inch off the secondaries.

[PIGEON_MAN]

ROSE,I DO NOT IN ANYWAY CLASS MYSELF AN EXPERT IN EYESIGN BUT I ALWAYS SELECT MY BREEDERS BY THE EYE.I WOULD SAY THAT THIS EYE IS OF A VERY GOOD RACER FIRST AND BREEDER AFTER.I THINK IT IS WHAT IS KNOWN AS A DUAL PURPOSE EYE.

[Rentenier]

Please explain to me what you look for in the eye and how do you apply what you see when you judge a pigeon. I am trying to read eyes but don't know what to look for.

[Guest WINGS 04]

this looks like a distance eye to me as there is a ridge were the two colours  meet as the eye does not look flat just me opinion

[Guest WINGS 04]

rose can you post its results ? if any

[Silverdale Lofts]

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[Silverdale Lofts]

Rentenier look at the photo and imagine its a clocks face from 20 around to 40 its full of speed lines.

[stucky 1]

the thing about eyesign is there to many diffrent views and no actuall set of marks.

one eyesign man will say this and other will say that, it can be bit complicated, having said that most good breeders have good eye, racers not so much. have seen experts mark down sect winners in the national and also other big winners. i do think it is more reliable in the breeding than racing. there plenty good eyes never bred a thing, that is why no body should go on eyesign alone. back it up with pedigree, by that i mean good winning and breeding birds in the bloodlines.

[Guest ben]

What we must try to remember is that95% of eye theories go back to Stan Bishop,who rehashed gigot`s ideals into a much better packaged item in the later 40`s,.along side his old hand books,and" racing to win"which many fanciers still think was wrote by Fred Shaw

   As we all well know Stan was a suberb storyteller,and top class writer,but to be honest could`nt fly a kite in a strong wind.

                         Best Regards

 

[Guest]

Pigeon man I believe this hen will be as good a breeder as racer, unfortunately when you look at a picture you rely on the angle the photographer has taken and of course you can not see the structure in the iris. However if you look closely at the eye at 9 - 12 o clock you will see the outside circle coming over the top of the eye and it is the same colour  as the first circle. I would gaurantee this pigeon as a very good breeding hen, because I know from it's performance as listed by Rose that it will have an excellent Iris. If it didn't have the outside circle or it was a different colour to the 'eye sign' then it would not have breeding capabilities.

As a note Jack Barkel in his book pays tribute to Bill Carney as the great eye man

Best wishes

Albear

[PIGEON_MAN]

HI SILVERDALE LOFTS WHAT A EYE ON THE PIGEON YOU PUT ON HERE IS THIS ONE OF YOUR  BIRDS,WOULD BE VERY INTERESTED TO KNOW WHAT IT AS DONE RACING AND BREEDING

[Guest]

This is a very much cut down couple of paragraphs from Cahpter 5 'Selection by Appearance' of Professor Alphonse Ankers' book "The Art of Breeding". I hope you will find it topical and interesting.  

 

In summary one can evaluate the performance capacity of pigeons without the basket, but one needs to have acquired quite a lot of knowledge to do this. I mean that when somebody makes the effort to absorb the necessary knowledge about heredity cycle of the different characteristics, their connection, and all practical data of the "current" pigeon populations by reading, he can - with skilled direction - become a good judge later on. The evaluation of exterior characteristics - even the muscle quality - is no mystery. The most preposterous mistakes are made by those advisors who search for only one sign with pigeons and pretend to know everything on this basis.... class ..... cut of the head.... Such a single exterior positive correlation doesn’t exist. We have enough past and clear examples to substantiate this. The more somebody gets into the scientific aspect, the more he understands how much there is still to learn. You become more modest. At the same time, the famous scientist is much more modest because he has learned through learning how little we really know. That was the meaning of Vermeyen's statement: "We know nothing about a pigeon.".

 

The most well known prophet of eye theory is a German fancier of the 20's, Theodor Backs of Gelsenkirchen. He could read all sorts of things out the eyes of his fabulous pigeons. These observations were perhaps justified in his own loft. But the mistake was that Backs applied these observations to all racing pigeons. Because the results of Back's pigeons were exceptional, other fanciers started to imitate him, and the consequences were so complex that the result became unbelievably negative. As a result one still finds quite a few fanciers today who made this mistake because they were convinced that they could read from the eyes whether the pigeons were healthy or not. Some English fanciers are still on this track, and as far as I have been informed, still explain many unrealistic biological questions with this eye theory. I am myself a convinced supporter of the third road and declare that we can read the mordant, the tenacity, the temperament, the intelligence and the vitality from the eyes.

 

Another, just as dangerous error in connection with wing theory has become notorious. The creator was the late Belgian author Vanderschelden. Although others mentioned it earlier, he theorised their assumptions that the desired wing form is the one which from an aerodynamic point of view ensures the greatest speed. And he has broadcast this theory as the only salvation in a very tenacious and fierce manner. The disagreeable aspect was that Vanderschelden himself became so obsessed by his own school of thought that he firmly believed that performance capacity and wing form was one and the same. Of course the theory had to fail, and the failure was as noisy as the broadcasting. As a reaction to the failure, many drew the conclusion that wing form is unimportant and has absolutely nothing to do with speed. It doesn’t stand alone but contributes in combination with other important characteristics. When a pigeon has muscles as hard as a plank, the fastest wing can't make it a winner at longer distances. Each exterior mark is only a fraction. The affect of this fraction on the aggregate of the pigeon's value depends on how much this property is connected with the total performance. Each characteristic, however small or insignificant it seems to be, affects a pigeon's total performance capacity differently. One property can often compensate another, or at least make it milder. We must include this in our calculations when we want to give a useful opinion about a pigeon. Let's take an example:

 

Two characteristics presenting compare their relationship in two different birds. In one, the muscle quality seemed to be sufficient for up to only 600 km. But as he also possessed tenacity and stubbornness, took several good places on 700 - 750 km although this distance was really too far for him. By contrast, the other had excellent muscle quality, so excellent that one could let him fly 900 km without being anxious. But his mordant was of such nature that his results were below average.

 

We looked at the same two properties with both pigeons, but their different mix in each bird gave different results. Gumar's best physical requirement for champion performance did not serve because he lacked ambition. Hulam 207, the only offspring of his only daughter, was the best pigeon of the country in a specific year. Most likely because, the excellent muscle quality, as well as the mordant factors combined in her which came from the contribution of a specially strong Symons cock she had as partner.