How to Hand Feed the Baby Lovebirds?

When the mum and dad of your baby lovebirds are taking utmost care of their babies, you don't have to hand feed them.

Most of the owners preferred to go for hand feeding mainly due to disowning of their parents of varied reasons. In addition to this, hand feeding the baby lovebirds favor higher price, as it will be very tame and more sellable.

As hand-feeding process is time consuming, the persons who can get up early, stay up late and provide them with the feed several times during daytime only can begin this process of baby lovebirds rising.

Hand fed your babies when they attain two weeks old. This will provide them time for father and mother to start off pretty well.

Hand feeding formula includes wheatena, sunflower seed, and various kinds of baby food. Mix these ingredients and freeze it in ice cube trays. You can provide a fresh cube for each meal.

Although formula is pretty smelling and gross looking, the lovebird young ones just love it like anything. You can use a syringe with the nozzle sliced at a slant to take more feed through at a time. You mix the frozen feed with warm water, to a texture that is easily squeezed through the syringe and easily swallowed by the little ones Do sterilize the syringe after each use.

One of my client used pronutro, which is an excellent commercial food for rising lovebird chicks. Mix the Pronutro with warm water with a consistency of free flow through syringe.

Hold the baby lovebird in your hand; place the syringe into his beak, not too deep. Provide him one mouthful at a time, permitting him to swallow and breathe in-between. You ought to do this process at least once in 3 ½ to 4 hours. You should start at 7:00 am to 11:00 pm.

Housing Lovebirds with Other Birds

"Can lovebirds and other bird species be housed together in an aviary?"- This is a pretty basic question on lovebirds. It is essential that you do LOTS of research on lovebirds before bringing any lovebird home.

Do you think housing lovebirds with other species of birds found to be good? NO… Under any circumstances don't house the lovebirds other species of birds like quails, parakeets, cockatiels or cockatoos…

If you house the lovebird with quail, it will kill a quail, as it is very aggressive. Hence lovebird can be housed alone or with its species.

In lovebirds, females are always aggressive than males. Some time the ferocious female lovebird will kill a docile male. Hence a good watch on the female is necessary to avoid infighting so that she doesn't kill its mate.

Even housing a lovebird with African Grey may lead to problem for the Parrot as this tiny creature will try to attack that massive one, which is ten times her size!

Lovebirds can keep company with other bird's species (Bongo Marie, Spikey Le Bec, Caique, and African Grey), without being housed in the same cage. However, they won't physically interact with each other but they do often talk to each other, whistle back and forth- usually with Bongo bossing lovebirds around.

Hidden Facts About Egg of Lovebirds.

One of my client asked- "I have a female peach faced lovebird in a cage with a male parakeet. This morning I found a single egg at the floor of the cage. How can this be? What can I do? The lovebird seems to have abandoned the egg."

This is a peculiar problem- she thinks that the parakeet crossed the peach faced lovebird and produced egg. She was very much worried about that egg. What do you think? Who is that BLACK SHEEP? How this lovebird laid egg?

No lovebird entered this cage and mated this female peach faced lovebird to produce egg. Egg producing is a physiological phenomenon just like that of menstrual cycle in women. Even if my client don't have male parakeet in the cage, the female lovebird will produce egg.

Eggs will be produced in the reproductive tract of the lovebird irrespective of mating. But these eggs are INFERTILE. Even if you place this egg with the some other brooding lovebird, it won't hatched out…

Lovebirds in your Shoulder…

Now you have a wonderful tame and trusting Lovebird. The next step in taming your lovebird is to bring her to your shoulder freely. Don’t panic while your luvy is sitting near your face. But some of the larger parrots may injure your face or even eyes. Even this small creature tries to bite you it can’t produce heavy damage.

Most of the finger-tamed lovebirds easily travel along your arm and will settle right to your shoulder. Once you manage to settle her on your shoulder, you now have hands free situation. You can walk around your home—watching TV, or even reading newspaper without any fuss.

If you’re wearing any Jewels, you should be very careful with this shoulder-riding lovebird because the shiny necklace and earrings may attract your lovebird easily. Some of the lovebirds might break these valuables and even bitten by your bird, which is highly TOXIC.

Other disadvantage with these shoulder-riding lovebirds include you might have forgotten her presence and may attend a doorbell. The lovebird might fall from your shoulder or try to fly helter-skelter after seeing a stranger at your doorsteps.

You should be double careful while cooking with a hot oven or hot burner, as this may cause severe discomfort to your lovebird. As these birds are hardly 40-60 gms in weight and also will be quiet, once it gets accustomed, it is very easy to forget her presence in your shoulder.

Be careful with your shoulder-riding lovebirds. Once you overcome the above said difficulties, you can enjoy yourself with your lovebirds…

How to Tame your Lovebirds?

So, you have presented a new baby lovebird home for your kid. Now, it is a high time for you to play with it. As your little bird is afraid of you-you may think what to do? Taming your lovebird will sort out this problem.

You can introduce your hand to this little creature, once it shows comfortable with your presence and responds to you by getting close to the side of the cage you are near.

Bribe him a broken sunflower seed or a small piece of millet but don't try to pat your lovebird if your lovebird gets away from your hand. It may take at least two days to get familiarize with your hand and also he should get enough confidence that the hand will not hurt him.

After couple days, your lovebird will allow you to gently stroke his breast. Congrats!!! Now both of you become good friends. Now your lovebird won't move away from your hand.

Keep on talking with him when you are patting his breast. Once he feels comfortable with your hand, gentle press against the abdomen and push up a bit. Now there may be a chance to put his one foot onto your finger.

If he has not frightened, you can give next push also to put his other limb up and be standing on your hand. Some of the lovebirds will get frightened at this stage and immediately jumps off from your hand. Don't loose your heart. Once your lovebird settled and is calm, again try the same procedure.

Before taking him out of the cage, you must be certain that he should not get injured from other pets in your home (cats, dogs, etc). If you have other pets, remove them from the room where you're keeping the lovebirds.

Once your lovebird gets accustomed to your finger for at least a week, it is the time to take him out of the cage. Once you take your lovebird out of the cage, it may get panic and may fly helter-skelter. Be calm at this situation and also help him to land properly because he may not know this act. Once it lands on the floor, don't run and catch it. Talk him quietly and slowly approach him to pick him up to place him in your finger.

Although it is very easy to write or speak about taming your lovebird, it is really a Herculean task for an owner to tame the lovebirds. ALL THE BEST!!!

General Management of African Lovebirds

African lovebirds are a group of parrots with short squaretails. They all come from Africa. Their main coloring is green with some orange and yellow feathers in the tail. The head coloring varies with the species of which there are quite a few.

African lovebirds thrive on a seed mixture of equal parts millet, canary, with a very little sunflower and hemp. They like green food and apple. They breed in a nest boxes which should be about twice the size of a budgerigar's nest box: 8 by 8 by 8 inches is quite a good size with an entrance hole just big enough for them to get in and out, high up in one side.

Unlike most members of the parrot family, African lovebirds build nests inside their boxes consisting mainly of long thin strips of bark peeled from twiggy branches. They have a unique method of carrying this to the nest box by sticking several strips of bark into the feathers on their rumps and conveying them to the boxes in this manner.

African lovebirds are free breeders in aviaries, the only snag being that, with certain exceptions, they are almost impossible to sex. Various theories have been advanced on how to tell cocks from hens, such as size of head, shape of beak, width between pelvic bones and so on, but whilst these hold good in some cases none of these methods is really reliable.

If you have two lovebirds, which go to nest and never produce eggs you can safely assume that you have two cocks. Conversely, if they produce what appears to be abnormally large clutches of infertile eggs you can be pretty sure that you have two hens.

African lovebirds enjoy a bath so they should regularly be provided with a shallow dish of clean water in which to indulge this habit.

Tame single specimens make good pets although they are unlikely to learn to talk. Pairs usually remain wrapped up in themselves talking little or no interest in their human companions. African lovebirds are usually better kept in out-door aviaries where their bright colors and amusing habits may be enjoyed to greater advantage.