What makes a good carrier pigeon?

You can tell whether the pigeon is sharp or dull. If the pupils shrink like needle eyes in the sun, it means that the pigeon is very smart and often performs well in competitions. When a stranger walks into the pigeon loft, the pigeon's eyes will pay attention to his every move and sneak away from his feet before he makes a move. This is also a smart pigeon. Some veteran pigeon owners can feel the pupils trembling rhythmically with a high frequency when they press the top of the pigeon's head with their index finger, thinking that this kind of pigeon is highly intelligent. They often compare the eyes of mentally retarded children with pigeons to illustrate that "eyes are the windows to the soul." Although these lack strong scientific basis, they have been confirmed in practice, so they are firmly believed.

Secondly, you can see the pigeon’s health condition and peak condition before the race through the pigeon’s eyes. A healthy pigeon must have bright, radiant eyes, bright rather than watery eyes, clear grit and a more three-dimensional look. Some weak pigeons often have sluggish eyes, losing their former brightness, and the grains of sand are muddy and unclear. If a cold or pigeon pox occurs in one eye, it will be more obvious in the eyes, ranging from wet eyes, watery eyes, and crow's eyes, to severe eyelid swelling, unable to open the eyes, or eyelids with acne particles, eye sand discoloration, etc. Before a racing pigeon is basketed, the owner always has to check whether it is in peak condition, so the eyes are an important sign. The eyes are lively and bright, the eye sand is bright red and golden, and the pigeon with red eyelids is redder than before. All these indicate that this pigeon is in peak condition and will perform well in the competition.

From the color of the sand in the pigeon's eyes, the thickness and density of the sand grains, you can roughly determine what strain the pigeon is. Pigeons' eye grit, including surface grit and bottom grit, is hereditary, with both dominant and recessive inheritance. As long as they are inbred, the same eye grit as old breeding pigeons will appear in 10 instead of 20 generations. For example, one of the pigeons of the Janssen brothers is "Old White Eyes". Although decades have passed, the white peach blossoms and red eyelids are still his "registered trademarks" to this day. The eye sand of No. 90 obtained by Heng is the most dark chicken yellow. The eye sand of Shanghai "Plum Bird" is similar to No. 90, but "Plum Bird" also has beautiful bayberry and peach blossoms. There are also eye sands of the Yang Aarden and Alevish series, which all have their own characteristics, and pigeon fanciers will know them at a glance.

A country should be unified." To identify the advantages and disadvantages of a homing pigeon, although the pigeon's eye is very important, it must be comprehensively examined. For example, the pedigree of a pigeon

can be traced back to its father. Mom, ancestors, common people and descendants. Then there is the individual body shape, feathers, bones, muscles, waist, wings and eyes." If you judge the quality of a pigeon solely based on the pigeon's eyes, it is easy to make generalizations. I have a lot of experience and lessons in this regard. For example, the violet eyes in the peach blossom sand and the green eyes in the chicken yellow sand are both rare and good pigeons in my opinion. I have a No. 90 x Alevish black raindrop cock, which was given to me by my old friend Zhang Chaode. It has a pair of purple peach blossom eyes with a blue background that everyone loves. It gets better and better as it gets older. Wuxi pigeon fanciers want to buy or borrow it. I I can't bear to let it out of the shed. But its life is like an honor guard for people to admire, not a fighting force, and its descendants are not outstanding.

For another example, the Dianyancong pigeons are sometimes praised as being so amazing. There is an advertisement that claims to "specialize in providing the offspring of the Diancong pigeons." I have a gray male that was given to me by Ruan Jibao from Huangyan. There are silver dots in the pupils that are as big as rice grains. Most of the dots that people see are one or two gold dots the size of a needle tip, with dozens of clusters in them. The combined eye clusters are extremely rare. Japan's "pigeon-eye heroes" Daikoku Takafumi and Yamaishi Hiroshi loved it so much that they took more than a dozen photos of the dove-eye bush and brought them back to Japan. After a while, Shanshi and Sanlang came again to ask for photos, and they paid great attention to the pigeons in the eyes. To be honest, none of my champion pigeons is a baby.

There is no doubt that there are good pigeons in Violet, Green Eyes and Dianyancong, and there are also mediocre ones. It is a pleasure and enjoyment for pigeon breeders to appreciate the pigeon eyes. When a pigeon fancier comes to visit and sees the shiny golden trophy, violet pigeon eyes and dotted pigeon eyes, he inevitably has to say a few words of praise. For the pigeon fancier, it is a kind of honor and satisfaction.

If you can tell just by looking at a pair of pigeons that it can fly a champion, or that its offspring can fly a champion, young people will believe it and those who know it will laugh.

In 1988, pigeon fancier Chen Changyuan and I planned a scientific experiment on pigeon eyes to find photoreceptor cells from the iridescence to prove the effect of eye sand on pigeons' homing. He was a doctor, and he hired two famous chief physicians of the pathology department to spend two months doing physiological anatomy on the pigeon's eyes. No less than 10 homing pigeons were used and divided into two experimental groups. The pigeon eyes were frozen and then sliced. After magnifying 500-2000 times, the fine structures of the eye sand, eye signs and character circles were observed, and 36 color films were taken. The conclusion is very disappointing. The eyes are not photoreceptors, but are composed of nutrient blood vessels and pigment cells. The eyes and the character circle are two muscles, which are "incompatible" with the genetic performance of pigeons. Of course, the development of these nutritional blood vessels and muscles has a direct effect on the performance of the pigeon's eye function. This experiment is an important achievement in the scientific research of homing pigeons in our country, but pigeon eye theorists do not give it a second thought, because according to them, "pigeon eye research is not limited by biology" and "Mendel's laws are not suitable for pigeons." Eye Research". In order to provide reference for pigeon fanciers, 8 of the selected photos were published in "Chinese Pigeon", and Chen Yuanchang wrote an article describing the process and conclusion of this experiment.

I think pigeon eyes should be studied. The research should be guided by scientific theories and draw scientific conclusions. "Bold assumptions and careful verification" can also be used. But it is also necessary to "verify", but some pigeon fanciers have written large articles on pigeon eyes without doing scientific research. They only have "bold assumptions" and no "careful verification", which often misleads people. When young people see the article, they search for it and take the correct position. As a result, they end up running on the wrong path full of hope. In the pigeon world, the 1950s was the peak period for the study of pigeon eyes. Later, Ro Fleming wrote a book "Applications of Pigeon Eyes", SoWoE Bishabo published a book "The Secret of Pigeon Eyes", etc., see The pigeon eye articles in our country were all published in the 1980s, and they all used statistical methods to verify their results, and soon fell into disuse. Before scientific discoveries are successful, they are often ridiculed as dreams. If you don't even dare to dream, how can you make scientific discoveries? We should support the pigeon eye research, but do not believe in the conclusions of subjective imagination