TDK conference 2009

From the time people started to breed pigeons, much has been said and written about the subject of the physique, the vitality and the eye. And the opinions about the eye’s valuation and significance have differed widely, often contradicting each other. We wondered whether the pigeon’s eyes can show us the breeding and racing qualities. That’s why we choose that topic. We tried to choose an objective method which we could examine living pigeons with.

We examined 53 (30 male and 23 female) racing pigeons, what are more than one year old, and who have got racing results. The heeded qualities were: the colour of the eyes, the richness in colour, the surface area of the iris, the relation of pupil and iris (2x), the granulated iris/ breeding grooves. During the first phase of the test we have observed the result of the races ( speed ) and its effect on the bloodline, we have used the individual animal model where the space of the race (p< 0.001), the direction of the wind p< 0.001), the month of the race (p=0.117) are considered as constants, while we have counted the temperature of the air during the temperature of the getting away (p=0.015) as shared variable. Based on these breed values we have counted an estimated efficiency, and we have used these for examining the possible effect of particular accomplishment by the single factor linear model.

According to the results we have realised that the pigeons with pearl eyes flew faster, than the other ones with orange or fish eye. The pigeons which have complete circle of adaptation were faster than the ones which haven’t got circle of adaptation (p=0.091). The pupil iris’s relation in poise don’t relate with the flying accomplishment of the pigeons (p=0.740). But the more narrow pupil pigeons (within the provoking test) flew clearly faster, than the ones which have got wider pupils (p=0.038). Much of the pigeons in the monitoring substance come from the Janssen bloodline, they were grey, in addition dead colour eyed and with excellent flying power. We play an important part of the test that we have to examine the pigeons’ eyes which we want to buy for breeding or for racing.