Good point about if it doesnt work out nothing lost. I've trained and flown a bunch of birds but never an imprint coop, so I'm doing it for the first time this year. I've been on the fence about hooding her. I also use a marker to train behaviors, but I'm planning on waiting til the bird is food motivated to start. (mostly because I'm lazy after training animals all day it's hard to go home and do more of it) I'll be following your thread to see what kind of headway you will get by having an early start and will probably be kicking myself a month from now