eyesign real or fake

[bewted]

hi jack,hope your ok,,,,,,,my pearl eyed cock!!! you said to keep his yellow eyed daughters only,in three to four generations the original yellow eye hen is gone,,,the perfect line of decsent.Could you please explain what i do with him and his daughters and third and fourth generation to keep perfect line,,,,,i have a basic idea of what i think would be best matings,but,would like to know what is your thinking,,,,ted,,,,hope that sounds right?

[Jack Barkel]

Hello Ted,

 

In three to four generations of pairing a yellow eyed daughter from a yellow eyed daughter of a yellow eyed daughter, to this original pearl eyed sire, you will produce a pearl eyed cock and a pearl eyed hen, not from the same nest and probably not even the same year.

 

Then and only then do you cross this perfect line of descent and pair Brother to Sister, that is to say switch from line breeding to in breeding, and only then do you put the two pearl eyes together.

 

I guarantee you that if your selection has been the correct one of continuing this perfect line of descent, then every young cock from this mating will be the perfect reproduction of the original sire. It must be understood that this original pearl eyed cock must have an impeccable background or his progeny will all display genetic drift as can be seen in most lofts where this type of control is not fully understood.

 

I hope this helps,

 

Regards

 

Jack

 

jackbarkel@mweb.co.za

 

http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/jackbarkel

 

[bewted]

thanks jack,basicaly i was thinking right,but,brother and sister mating for inbreeding made me think for a bit,,,,i should realised straight away about line breeding and then inbreed,,,,,i am doing exactly the same way breeding blue eyed white mini lop rabbits and succeeding in size reduction ,,,,,so,breed for pigeons to fly and breed for rabbit size,,,,very same principles and rules of breeding to what your after,i think i wrote it right,,,thanks again jack,,,,ted

[Guest]

I want to put my 2 penneth in here.  We have been following Jack's methods for about 4 years now, especially on breeding yellow to pearl. Since we started racing 5 weeks ago we started with 38 birds and we now have 35, only one of the missing three was bred by Red Rose and 2 were auction birds bred by other flyers.

 

Last week we had all our birds back in the clock by three 30 in the afternoon, a lot of club members had lots of birds out and this week we were three short from 31, two came back this morning and the missing one is an auction bird.  Again club members were anything from 5 to 22 birds out.

 

I can definately, back up Jack's theory regarding continuously breeding pearl to pearl and loosing the homing ability and intelligence in our birds.

[bewted]

thanks linda,your 4 yrs of breeding proves jack cant be wrong,i have lost most of my knowledge over the last 20 yrs out of the sport,but,jack slowly slowly putting me back on track,i just hope i can do him justice,at least give it my best shot with 100% trying,,,,,,ted

[bewted]

hi jack,how long did it take to breed your lemon pigeons? curious!  ted

[Jack Barkel]

Hello Ted,

 

I discovered this hen with a band in its tail, which caused me to think it was bred down from blues and not ash reds. I guessed it was a new mutation and just what I needed to pair to my three top breeding Slimme Cocks.

 

That was in 1997, and by the 29th August 2001 they were known and recognised in many parts of the world as " The Barkel's Lemon".

 

For three generation selection was rigid and slow, but by the fourth generation I was breeding them at will to the confirmation I desired.

 

It sounds easy, but I can assure you I had many dissapointments, before getting it right.

 

Kind Regards

 

Jack

[Joe90]

hello

 

i understand eyesign well. pls eyesign this bird, the photo is not the best but it will do. nice to see what you all think.

[Jack Barkel]

Hello Joe,

 

I am afraid for me it will not do, the photo has been taken while the pupil was dilated, the light refraction was incorrect and the sphincter muscles although they can be seen are at their weakest because of incorrect photography.

 

Sorry I am not prepared to stake my reputation on a poor photo although the eye looks good.

 

Maybe you could take a better photo???

 

Regards

 

Jack

[blue bar]

Hello  Jack

Could you please tell me how one goes about taking photos of eyes in pigeons, what sort of camera do you use i have a 6.0 megaapixels digital camera with a10xoptical zoom as i would like toget into eye sign more or is the information i need in your books.

 

Regards

Edwin

[Jack Barkel]

Hello Edwin,

 

Yes there are three pages in my latest book describing how to photograph the eye, complete with illustrations.

 

Both your books are on their way to you, I think you should have them by this weekend.

 

Enjoy,

 

Jack

[bewted]

hi jack,hope your ok?  i remember from past,specks of dust in the eye,especially in the pupil that these eyes were/are good breeders,could you please explain further on specks/dust in eye,i might have it wrong as i am thinking of 20 yrs ago,,,,ted

[Jack Barkel]

Hello Ted,

 

I believe the feature you are describing is the star cluster, I submit an example from my own loft, in fact he is one of the three cocks that formed the three line bred families to my Lemon strain. I have never had a pigeon with this feature, that when paired the correct way, did not prove to be a prolific breeder of winners and stock pigeons.

 

I describe how I believe the star cluster to be formed in my latest book.

 

Regards

 

Jack

 

[bewted]

thanks jack,now,does it matter on how much star cluster? eg;one speck or more? if more specks would it be more of value as a breeder than an odd speck or two?  thanks again jack,knowledge slowly but surely coming back!!

[Jack Barkel]

Hello Ted,

 

It is an overflow from the correlation, these specks as you refer to them are really rods going down into the pupil of the eye. They are the sign that that particular pigeons eye has a very strong foundation which is the correlation. Sometimes when these rods overflow into the pupil they move around for a while and attach themselves again onto the inner edge of the correlation, which is the base circle next to the pupil and extends to the outer perimeter of the eye. When this happens you will never know that your base circle was so rich in quality, but if it remains in the pupil it is a sure indication that your foundation is on the strong base that champions are made of.

 

Whatever the size or amount of Star Clusters in the eye, I attach to all of them the same high importance.

 

Regards

 

Jack

 

[bewted]

thanks jack,much appreciated.    ted

[bewted]

hi jack,what are the bad points to look for,apart from wishy washy eye as bill carney said,you said there as many bad faults as good ones,can you explain bad points to look out for please,,,ted,,,hope i got it right?

[bewted]

hi jack,,,,,from past memory again,no 2 circle,if this was all black and no colour,what does this indicate,breeder or racer or both? if my memory serves me right,this no 2 black must be black as possible or as said to me blacker than black and almost looks like circles 1 and 2 were one big black ball,just hope i dont get it wrong and make myself look stupid?  ted

[Jack Barkel]

Hello Ted,

 

I did put up a couple of faulted eyes, but we must realise that very few eyes are perfect, in fact I will go as far as to say that the average birds bred in the world show  imperfections at a rate of up to 93%. There are very few racing pigeons bred in the world that do not show some genetic drift in the genetic imprint in their eyes.

 

I myself breed 300 to 400 pigeons each year for the fancy, and even with my rigorous selection and compatible pairings there are still about 30 to 40 of these that will pop up out of these very selective gene pools to be disposed of as faulted.

 

Too many fanciers are happy with a bright eye, or some particular feature in the eye that attracts their fancy. Just read the critiques of most would be evaluators. They will tell you it will race, or that it will breed, they very seldom tell you at what percentage they will achieve these successes or how they arrive at that decision. They will often be heard to say it will never breed anything, and yet if paired to a good partner it can prove such a statement to be incorrect and even ludicrous.

 

They never describe the eye, and talk the customer through it, the only ones I can say that I have found besides myself to do this, are Piet de Weerd, and Bill Carney. These people would give a professional critique and give you without any fear the reason why. Whether they were always right I cannot argue, I can only speak for myself from my own records.

 

In saying this, I must say that Bill was the all-rounder whereas Piet was only selecting the sprint jobs around the 300 kilometre mark, he never stuck his neck out much over that distance. Both of them often did not consider that the breeding partner of a pigeon they condemned or elevated could prove them incorrect when making statements on breeding abilities. Both these men could be seen to run their fingers deftly over the body of a pigeon when they saw a better than average eye. Never could you say that these men based their whole decision on the eye, but that they checked out the other physical characteristics too when evaluating a pigeon. Nothing is as accurate as a hands on approach to this subject for then all characteristics are available, plus a live eye.

 

In my opinion a person that says it takes two eyes to fly, is not very bright. We are not out to select the best racer, although this can be done. The basket is a sure fire way to achieve this as all racing pigeons will carry racing genes, just some carry more than others. The object of eye sign is to select the breeder and a compatible mate. Here it takes the selection of four eyes to breed a champion, and that is why I myself have lost a lot of respect for people who make these empty statements and even more so for the fancier who is gullible enough and blindly believes them, thinking this is an intelligent reply to the subject.

 

 

Regards to All,

 

Jack

[Jack Barkel]

hi jack,,,,,from past memory again,no 2 circle,if this was all black and no colour,what does this indicate,breeder or racer or both? if my memory serves me right,this no 2 black must be black as possible or as said to me blacker than black and almost looks like circles 1 and 2 were one big black ball,just hope i dont get it wrong and make myself look stupid?  ted

 

Hello Ted,

 

This indicates that the colour is covered by a superimposed composite, if this is jet black it is superimposed if it is grey or dull black it is dilute.

This is the racing sign and when pairing two birds together it is advisable that the aditions of this composite on the cock and hen do not exceed 100%. There fore if we have a pigeon with a 100% composite covering all the adaptation, it should be paired onto a pigeon showing the adaptation colour all the way round, We refer to this as a yellow clear or a pearl clear.

 

I hope this explains the situation without pictures.

 

Jack.

[bewted]

hi jack,thanks for that,i know if you have a good eye you also need a good well balanced pigeon,no use a good eye and bad physical body or vice versa,i am merely picking at the bare basics from 20 yrs ago,thats why i ask about the various bits like i do,eg; full black circle no 2,from there i can hopefully get an idea of a compatible mate and experiment with breeding to see if i get it right first time or not,,,,hope this sounds right,,,,ted

[bewted]

thanks jack,no need for pics,should have realized you said it in previous posts of not exceeding 100% ,i apologise for my slow thinking,,,,,ted

[Jack Barkel]

Hello Ted,

 

I do not think you are slow thinking at all, you have asked many good questions which has enabled me to explain why certain thing are the way they are.

 

The only stupid question is the one not asked, and I may not be able to answer all of them.

 

Kind Regards

 

Jack

[bewted]

hi jack,if the no 4 circle rods,i shall call them,go over the no 2 circle,like loose threads,is there anything significant in this or not,hope i explained right,,,,ted

[Jack Barkel]

Hello Ted,

 

The number 4 circle, I always refer to it as the iris, will either drift to being full and spreading to other parts of the eye, in other words encroaching on the fifth circle (breeding circle) or covering the correlation( third circle). This is the most common deterioration seen in the eye, which will effect the breeding qualities more than the racing qualities.

 

The other drift we see but not as regular, is where the iris opens up, thin with wide spaces. The correlation can be seen to flow right through from the pupil to the outer edge of the eye in places. This is the drift that leaves you with a loft full of pigeons of the poorest quality, these are best out of your loft, and not given as a gift to anyone, for they will ruin any loft.

 

Ted, I personally do not keep either of these types in my loft, and have been rewarded accordingly. Too many have the attitude, "It looks all right to me, and its parents or one of them was good". This can put a fancier in the Carey Street of distress for pigeon fanciers, lowering their breeding prowess to the lowest depths of despair. The most successful lofts I have seen in my travels, keep much larger amounts of stock birds than race birds. This ensures them of producing top birds with regularity, from which a smash on race days is only a hiccup.

 

The stock loft is the back bone and foundation of any successful loft, in my opinion it takes a greater skill to breed top pigeons than to race them. This can be seen by novices often winnning a race but rarely producing a champion.

 

Regards

 

Jack