With major racers I knew up north, and some homer keepers here, they've had closed lofts that.breeders and squeakers couldn't see out at all like sheds with vents along top of walls and grated or solid floors, and they've sold,/given away at three weeks or sooner depending on how fast sqeakerss feather in and seen eating n drinking in nest boxes closed off also, and some of those soon later learning to fly at new loft, somehow found way home from fifty to couple hundred miles away or more. Most homers before six months I've seen easy to resettle even if lown only around loft some for weeks. Ive seen good homer blood up north not able to be resettled like that at/after two weeks, and so some swap eggs with a foster they get, so know birds will grow up in there loft. My lil colored homer walked home to new loft across city with broken wing, to buddy that had just bought it a week or month before never letting out before it took off as let out with old birds also bought at that time, after being gone a week. It walked hiho across city to new home.. but old bird pair (year and a half male and year old female, baby was maybe three weeks just toddling around not flying yet) and had paired up (supposedly breeder kept sexes separate when caged until decided adult quality to show sell breed) at his house it open sided coop with the baby in with them that was tormented by the male as they began nesting. An older fellow however that sells old blood of white Belgium racing blood however raises in barn never letting any out as original breeder he got from brought over seas and has passed away, and birds he sells older not squeaking and already flying, have came back to him from over three states routinely, to six away (he said used to sell one to three hundred sometimes for lot of money, to fliers and days even later the birds were on his barn, so says if buying a hundred to breed for white dove release, keep n breed them because if your too "loose lofted" to release them all after a day or before six months even, before you've bred young from, you can buy them back.. and people have!). So I guess it's a gamble depending on how long they settle there, and their blood instinct, because I don't think it's always depending on them seeing/ being/flying outside loft.
