Bad day!!

[Hokum Coco]

A raccoon got into my loft and killed two of my best white homing pigeons and five other young birds; Most while being protected by their mothers.. That raccoon will only do that "ONCE". I was heart broken to say the least as I did not secure my pigeon trap against predators last night and it was my own fault.

 

[sourland]

I'm very sorry that this happened to your birds. I once left my trap unsecured because my rollers had an overfly, and I was hoping they would return the next morning. A GHO entered my loft through the bobs and killed all the birds that were in that section of my loft. I never made that mistake again. I understand.

 

[Hokum Coco]

Thank you Sourland. I left my trap open for basically the same reason I had one bird that I thought was trapped trained and was having difficulty this night getting into the loft.

Lesson learned it better to loose one stupid bird as compared to potentially seven of your best..

 

[Hokum Coco]

Worse day!
I must have had a troop of raccoons ravage my coop through the night. They stripped ¼ of the asphalt roofing shingles off my roof and pulled and chewed through a plywood panel and killed all my birds except for 6. After a period of mourning and confusion in my loft things started to settle down.
.
I witnessed something unusual from my stand point the other day. I have two single parent ♀ with one squab each. My best ♂ homer who lost his mate in the attack was going through a grieving period (sometimes they will not pair again for months when this happens.)

Long story short ♂ has adopted the squab and is helping the ♀ raise it to adult hood.

My second female who is raising a squab by herself at present. Was finding it overwhelming at times. I check on her squab daily (the squab is partially fledge) and his crop was empty. He is near the same age as the other squab so I put him in with the step dad and son and he fed the little fellow until his corp was ballooned out.

I am now debating whether to leave him their permanently.