Hey guys! So after my recent unsucessfull incubation I just went out of town leaving my niebors on pigeons duty stating "IM FINE IF A BIRD DIES" as long as it's not one of my 4 favorites out of my 16 total. BOTH MY BOYS DIED! We have a weird thing where whenever we leave for more than 3 days we tend to have animals die :/ one of the boy somehow slipped out and got surprise attacked by the hawk(he escaped but died of shock) and I realized upon return my favorite boy and first ever pigeon had been eaten by something that had gotten into the loft and left nothing but feathers/blood behined 
I'm super sad but this also makes me want to try out a fancy breed as if I have non fliers I figure they won't be as at risk as my homers when the Cooper is about and should be fine once I catch what I suspect was a young racoon or weasel who slipped the gate to the aviary. 
so any advice on a good beginner fancy breeds? The fanciest breed in my loft is my pair of figuritas but theyre not loft raised and I've never let them out so I don't know their flying ability. I love Swift's, runts owls and Indian fantails too. Any other favorite fancy breeds? I'm thinking I want a breed that could fly if need be like if a dog or something ran after it, but would prefer to stay grounded or perched rather than flying as the hawk has only ever taken birds in flight but seemingly ignored those who don't move(like a t-rex lol). My remaining homers who are trained are all fear freezers and my two now dead boys were my head honchos in charge of training my youngers on the flight routes and manouvers so I feel almost like I'm starting from scratch as now I only have 2 experienced(hawk and flight wise) well trained birds left from before I locked everyone up for winter :/ I've decided imma breed em up and fly the babies come summer but as they're all YB's except one pair who's first set of eggs were deformed I'm thinking imma have a wait on that and will eventually need to fly them at least to properly train my youngest 5 so they know the area well enough when the Cooper no doubt makes a pass or if anyone escapes when they shouldnt(aka my white pied did so also while I was gone but he's well trained and has gone head to head whith the coopers and went right back in come breakfast apparently :/).
I'm super sad but this also makes me want to try out a fancy breed as if I have non fliers I figure they won't be as at risk as my homers when the Cooper is about and should be fine once I catch what I suspect was a young racoon or weasel who slipped the gate to the aviary. so any advice on a good beginner fancy breeds? The fanciest breed in my loft is my pair of figuritas but theyre not loft raised and I've never let them out so I don't know their flying ability. I love Swift's, runts owls and Indian fantails too. Any other favorite fancy breeds? I'm thinking I want a breed that could fly if need be like if a dog or something ran after it, but would prefer to stay grounded or perched rather than flying as the hawk has only ever taken birds in flight but seemingly ignored those who don't move(like a t-rex lol). My remaining homers who are trained are all fear freezers and my two now dead boys were my head honchos in charge of training my youngers on the flight routes and manouvers so I feel almost like I'm starting from scratch as now I only have 2 experienced(hawk and flight wise) well trained birds left from before I locked everyone up for winter :/ I've decided imma breed em up and fly the babies come summer but as they're all YB's except one pair who's first set of eggs were deformed I'm thinking imma have a wait on that and will eventually need to fly them at least to properly train my youngest 5 so they know the area well enough when the Cooper no doubt makes a pass or if anyone escapes when they shouldnt(aka my white pied did so also while I was gone but he's well trained and has gone head to head whith the coopers and went right back in come breakfast apparently :/).
