Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

Lovebirds form wonderful pets. It is better to keep them as pet when they are very young. This helps you to have them as well trained lovebirds and there is great bonding between you two. Any lovebird breeder has good amount of job as he has to perform good work because of the unpredictable nature of these African lovebirds.  So let us gather some basic thing when you think of breeding the lovebirds.

1)     Finding perfect male and female counterparts of birds: Make sure that you have one male and one female lovebird. A pair of males and female lovebird would bond well. Therefore, you must have a true pair that consists of male and female birds. Now, how would you differentiate between a male and female? You need to look at hen and cock. The hen is usually broader and she often perches with her legs kept apart. However, the male are not that much perching. You can touch and feel the pelvic bone and you will understand the difference. The female would have her pelvic bones little apart while the male have t close.

There may be another issue when you need to find male and female lovebirds. You need to find male and female then they must be fond of each other. This is the main issue, generally, the hen easily attracts the male bird and it will turn him on. Sometimes, it may happen that any of the partners may attack the other person and you may find the other bird dead when you get back home.

Once you find perfect lovebird then you must reward them with perfect lovebird clutches.

2)     Nutritious diet: When you want that, the mate should mate perfectly then you need to feed them well. Nutritious diet must be fed to them. Along with fruits and vegetables, seeds and pellet base must be given to them. It is better to feed them with sprouted seeds rather than dry one as former has good nutritious content. Hard-boiled eggs are also very good feed for the lovebirds. You can go in shop and pick up a box of egg food. Then you can either mix it with other food or give them the dry platter. This way, parent could also feed their babies and before nesting, this is used as feed to the mate. All such nuts, seeds, vegetables add to the nutrition of birds and they are healthy. When they are healthy, they can easily breed and give birth to young ones.

3)     Proper cage and nest box: when you are building cage to these lovebirds, special precaution must be taken to build a well space cage for them. You can also hang the nest box outside the cage with the entrance either cut through the bar or use a cage that has built in nesting doors. This is essential thing to keep in mind when you are purchasing any proper cage. This will also help you in knowing when the babies are laid and when the babies are hatched. Before laying eggs, lovebirds usually build their nests. They carry the nesting materials in their feathers and then lay their nests. They can use anything to build the nest; it could be bark of tree, straw, papers etc. Inside the cage, you must fully provide them fresh water.

4)     Proper care to be taken when lovebird builds their nest: As soon as the nest is built, it is not long that eggs are laid soon. The hen can lay eggs every second and the count goes on until there are 4 to 6 eggs in the nest. It is after third egg when the hen starts incubating. The time taken for first egg to be hatched is around 21 to 24 days. In addition, second and third egg is hatched in almost same time.

5)     Feed the babies in well-set manner: you must start giving good amount of feed inside the cage. You will see how soon the feeding ends when you give them to babies. To provide babies constant supply of food, you must keep a constant watch on them. It is better that the parents should feed their babies. If you want to feed them then you must have good training on hand feeding those babies.

Breeding of African lovebirds is very easy if you understand all proper things that are to be taken care of. With all such things, you will have good lovebird babies too.

Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

African lovebirds are famous lovebirds that are best pets that anyone could have. African lovebirds are stout bundle that have great colour combination with mind-blowing contrasting features. These lovebirds are very interactive and social in nature. They like playing around and their noise symbolises contentment. It is better to have the lovebirds in pair and they are better as pair as well as being alone. These birds might fight with each other hence they should not live in colonies. Let us know some major thing sand characteristics about the lovebirds.

Complete description of lovebirds

African lovebirds are very small and stout in size. They are 5 to 7 inches in length and are in different colours. Their average life expectation is 15 years. These birds have short and rounded tails. They are dimorphic and the males have grey mask. Their feet are very light coloured and their bill is light coloured. The female is green on the other hand. When you compare the body size to beak then you will find it is smaller than that.

Origin of African lovebirds

There are nine species in lovebirds and out of those; eight of species are from African origin. These African lovebirds originated from Madagascar and Africa. It was in middle of eighteenth and nineteenth century, that these lovebirds have been noticed. Since that time, these birds have been captivated in to man’s reality s well as imagination.

Special characteristics:

Let us know some major characteristics of these African lovebirds.

1)     African lovebirds are socially active and noisy birds.

2)     These birds are very aggressive as compared to other lovebirds.

3)     These sweet creatures are very playful by nature and hence very active in nature. Whether you keep it in captivity or in cages, they try to be very interactive.

4)     For these small birds, you need to be very careful for their cages. They tend to be in open cages that has much space.

5)     These lovebirds need attention as well as care. When they do not get proper care or attention from your side, they might get to have some behavioural changes in them.

Temperamental

It is seen that these socially active birds are very witty. It is their witty nature that they either love to being alone or only with their perfect partners. They need to choose their own partners to whom they are attracted. Else, they may damage their partner. These birds might fly away hence; these birds should be kept in constant look.

Having African lovebirds as pet

African lovebirds have great personality and their diverse and attractive colour attracts everyone. Hence, everyone thinks of keeping these African lovebirds as their own pet. They may be like a clown who loves playing all the time. They have playful nature. Many people feel lonely and they have lovebirds as their pets because that keeps away any kind of loneliness. These birds keep on flying and love hanging from toys and ropes. They love to be in pairs.

Some popular African lovebirds

Not all of the African lovebirds are meant to be kept as pets. There are some of the famous African lovebirds. Peach faced lovebird is a famous one. They are noisy as well as aggressive. These small creatures love to fly away from their cage. Special care and attention is needed when you keep these birds inside the cage. Other famous African lovebird species are red faced, Abyssinian, black masked, Nyasa and Madagascar lovebirds. Each of these species has their own distinct features.

Diet of African lovebirds

The African lovebirds have their own feed that consists of nuts and stems. Proper nutrition is necessary for these birds otherwise it may be bad for their health. Vegetables, fruits must also be added to their diet. Fresh water must be included in their diet too. Everyday new fresh water should be supplied in the cage.

Health issues of African lovebirds

The small lovebirds can suffer from much kind of health issues. They might be known from their behaviour. When they start plucking their feathers, it means that they might be showing some illness features. They may have overgrown beak, or eye blindness, epileptic seizures etc.

You must have good course done on these small lovebird’s health course. When you think of keeping these small parrots as your pet then you must be best towards them. Proper nutrition is necessary to these birds for their best behaviour. Once you make them friends, they tend to be always yours.

Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

Love birds can be your best pet; but only thing is that you should know about their care and food. There are total nine species of lovebirds available and out of those eight species are African lovebirds. Let us know the proper classifications of these African lovebirds those are famous for being some of the best pets. These lovebirds are small beaked parrots that come in varied colours. Amongst these nine variations, only three types are famous as kept as pets while other six are in captivity or free.

1)     Peach faced lovebirds: one of the most common lovebirds that are kept in captivity is peach faced lovebirds. These birds have easy breeding and they can be cared for very easily. These breed comes from south westerns Africa and that have wide array of colours of them. Generally, they follow a dark green body with blue rump and bright orange or red face.

2) Abyssinian lovebirds: Abyssinian lovebirds are tough to breed for and that is the reason these lovebirds are very expensive. There is good differentiation of these birds in males and females. The male lovebirds have bright green plumage and bright red forehead while females have duller green look with some lacking in red marking.

3) Madagascar lovebirds: this breed is rare bird in captivity due to some reasons. Firstly, it follows some export restrictions and secondly, these Madagascar breeds are very difficult to breed. These birds are said to be the smallest lovebirds that have green body and wings. However, it has whitish grey head. These species are very sensible and delicate and hence these are given to only the experienced keepers.

4)     Fischer lovebirds: These lovebirds are very attractive. They have green bodies with golden yellow necks and dark orange heads. You may also find patch of olive green feathers on head and in tail side, there may be some purple or blue shade. These are very common lovebirds in pet trade. These are known to be playful and very energetic birds. There are wide ranges of colours in, which Fischer lovebirds are here.

5)     Black Cheeked lovebirds: these species of birds come from South Zambia. It is considered the most endangered species of African lovebirds. With green body and orange patch of feathers, these are considered very attractive lovebirds. It has a black face and because these are endangered species, most black cheeked lovebirds that are found in breeding programs.

6)     Red-faced lovebirds: these species of birds are not kept as pets generally. Male’s red-faced lovebirds have bright green body along with bright orange red face. They have black light feather and the females have same colour but a bit paler.

7)     Nyasa lovebirds: these species are also called Lillian’s lovebirds. These species are very difficult to breed hence rare to find. This is the reason, that it had many less ecological or studies being done on these species.

8)     Black collared lovebirds: these are the shy species and these are not meant to be kept as pets. These birds are very delicate and they need special figs for their diet. They have green body and they have black half-collared nape at their neck. With yellow chest and red markings on their rump, they look very attractive.

9)     Black masked lovebirds: these birds are native to Tanzania and are commonly kept in captivity. These birds like to live in social and hence they are kept in communal cavalries. Those birds that are naturally coloured black masked have bright green bodies with black necks. However, the breeding may produce both blue and yellow specimen.

These African lovebirds are famous as being the most exotic pets. Their size, colour and variety always attract anyone who is fond of pets. With lot of care and love, you can get the best of these birds. Whether you keep them as pets or you see them in nature, they always look attractive, you can keep a single pet or you can have pair of these lovebirds as your pet. Both are good. Their chirping sound, their playful nature and activity arte something that helps you to forget your stress and worries. You need to be just give them proper care and cuddling and they are all yours. With average life span of almost 15 years, these birds can be best pets that you can have.

Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

Many people prefer to have hand-raised lovebirds and that is saying to be good. Hand raised lovebirds are preferably between 8 to 12 weeks. Their sex does not make much difference. There are some facts that you should know about baby lovebirds. Baby lovebirds are someone who is ready to go to their new home. They are just born and are 8 to 12 weeks of age. When you get one baby lovebird, it is smaller than the normal lovebirds, but you may find it to be of same size.

1)     Baby young birds are very small and hence they need special love and care. They have just entered this new world and they may be frightened. That is the reason; you should treat them with complete care and love. Initially, they may be frightened and as a result, they use aggression to show their behaviour. You must handle each baby at least four or five times a day. You must treat the baby with cuddling, kissing, petting and turning.

2)     You need to be responsible when you are handling the babies. Until the baby is six months of age, you should take care of the baby for fifteen minutes. It is known that more you handle the baby, more he would like to be with you. Never ever, leave the baby inside the cage all alone. This may frighten him more and he would never become close to you.

3)     Cage placement: For these little baby lovebirds, you need to put your cage in a place where you think the baby can enjoy most. Direct exposure to sun should be avoided. This may lead the bird to become overheated. Although lovebirds are very hard and tolerant to all weather but when there is extreme temperature then the baby lovebirds may not be able to handle it.

As flooring, you may keep clothes or the paper inside the cage. So that any time, the bird throws out anything, you can clean them instantly. If you have playpen on top of cage then that is perfect for babies. They constantly climb in and out. The baby lovebirds have the tendency to come out and go in repeatedly. There are major dangers when the baby lovebirds come in and out. Some of them are:

Ø  Danger of other pets

Ø  Eating disorder

Ø  Lead poisonings etc

We would want our baby lovebirds to be completely safe and secure. It is best that you make the baby understand that lovebirds are safe with you and so you should direct him inside the cage repeatedly. Let the baby lovebird feel that whether he is attacked by any danger or it rains heavily outside, in any case, baby is safe within the cage. Therefore, the baby should know getting back to cage.

4)     Perching: as soon as you get a new baby lovebird, you may find him perching, climbing, cluttering etc. you must use natural wood perches so that your baby could have easy perching on those. To exercise bird’s toes, feets and legs, the uneven texture, diameter and contour helps them to get proper exercise. You can cut fresh and dried branches of desired size to make everything easy for babies. You must get perfect things done for birds to perch upon. You must have easy access and look your baby lovebirds could get anywhere inside the cage.

5)     Feeding for baby lovebirds: Special attention and care is needed for these baby lovebirds. There are many weaning formula available for baby lovebirds. You must provide fresh fruits and vegetables to the baby lovebirds daily. However, you should not give them chocolate, alcohol, avocado and concentrated salt and sugar. Apart from all these, you can give all kinds of nutritious food. Just as soon as they eat, you must get away with all old food so that there is no sourness or bacteria inside the cage. Apart from feed, keep fresh water inside the cage.

6)     Grooming: you must groom the baby lovebird easily. You should have enough training that you should give to baby. You must train them as how to fly and teach him flight well outside. Wing clipping is very necessary and you must do that every 3 to 4 weeks.

With proper care and love, you can train the baby lovebird in perfect manner. Getting a baby lovebird is easier as compared to getting an older lovebird. Because babies are having just entered, the world and they are ready to get everything possible. You can teach them in easiest manner.

Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

When you want the lovebirds to breed in best way, there are many things to take care of. Not just proper love and caring but proper housing and food habit must be maintained. It is one of the rewarding habits of breeding lovebirds and it may become a profitable venture when you compare it with time, energy and financial means. There are certain things that you should need to take care of before you start your lovebirds to breed or use the babies for selling them to others.

Pair of lovebird

The first step towards getting to breeding is getting perfect pairing. DNA test of bird is necessary in order to ensure yourself 100% of the fact that you are mating a male and female bird. This DNA test is done in order to check their proper health. You can do that at home but getting help from a veterinary is always helpful as they advise best things. One thing that you can start doing as keeping a breeding pair of bird as your own pet. Lovebirds make very good companions and this can benefit them from the human simulation. When a pair bonds well with each other, the taming of the babies are very easy. When you are choosing the pair, you can look for different and attractive coloured love birds, as colours are always attractive. It is best to go with colour and species that you find good looking rather than going on with market demands. If you have owned pets that are very young, it is necessary that you should wait for 10 months before they breed.

Best environment should be provided

When you want your lovebirds to breed, you need to provide them perfect spacing cage so that they can play around and roam around. These African lovebirds are very active and they love playing around. It is better if you have bigger cage. At least the cage measurement should be 36 inches by 20 inches by 20 inches. You should have cage that has larger horizontal space because birds get more room to stretch their wing and fly to small distances. You should prefer the horizontal spacing to be 5/8 inch or less.

Apart from the spacing and cage necessity, you need to make sure that the cage must have good things present. You must feed birds with fresh water daily. Secondly, all kind of nutritious food like nuts and grains, vegetables should be kept in cages. Lovebirds enjoy shredding and this can be made sure that you provide them more paper toys. Apart from food and water bowls, toys are very necessary for the birds. Nesting box is necessary and you should supply best form of nesting box in the cage. It is better to give cocktail sized nesting box for these birds and these materials could be made from newspaper, straw, dried grass, shredded corncobs etc.

Another thing to take care of is that you must supply them proper lightning or sunlight. If there is no sunlight, you can provide them lighting with avian bulbs with proper direction.

Supplying proper nutritional food

For proper and healthy breeding, it is necessary that you should provide them nutritional foods. Proper health is to be maintained for these birds as soon as they start growing up. Wheatgrass, fruit, nuts, grains are some of the best sources of food that should be supplied to them. Along with fresh filtered water, you need to provide them best vitamins and mineral supplements.

Incubation and hatching of lovebirds

It takes approximately 21-24 days for hatching period of these lovebirds. Just after hatching the parents are required for constant feeding and caring of chicks.  Extra food and water is must that should be supplied to the lovebird’s cage as soon as the birds hatching period are over. Parents should raise their babies and then you can tame them.  You must have perfect way of training these babies. You can even feed them with proper hand techniques.  You can do good practice of that before you start feeding those to birds.

Proper care has to be taken when you need that your African lovebirds should have proper breeding. You must have complete information right from their caging and feeding habits to the perfect season of their breed. Food, water, cage, breeding season and everything else should be taken proper care of. This would help your lovebird to give birth to healthy and perfect babies.

Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

Lovebirds are small parrots that need your care and love when you have them as your pet. Any kind of irrational behaviour towards your lovebirds could lead them to have some temperamental issues. The physical characteristics of the lovebird are as they have small body and its length goes to almost 5 to 7 inches. They weigh only 40 to 70 Gms. Their upper beak is hooked and that makes them easy to feed on seeds and nuts. There are many varieties of lovebirds. You have nine species out of which eight of them are of African origin. If you want them to have, best breeding in your cage take care of certain special facts. You must get ahead with proper nest where the hen may give birth to the babies. Many of these African lovebirds also start mimicking you but it is rare. Let us see some of the ways that will help you to build good nests for these lovebirds.

1)     Choose a cardboard: when you start building nest for your lovebird, you need to choose out a cardboard and that should be thicker. A proper and big size cardboard should be used so that there would be ample of space.

2)     Use of tapes: you must make use of non-toxic tape that would stick permanently to your cardboard. Using this tape, you must close all flaps or openings in the box. The box should be completely closed with the non-toxic tape.

3)     Decide the place for placing nest box: is you have a cage where you can place the nest box, and then you can place it inside there. Else, you can place it outside the cage so that birds can get inside the nest easily to lay eggs.

4)     Proper entrance should be created: you must create good entry point in the nesting box and you can have 3 inch round or square holes in it. Once you have enough of this card box, remove all those extra boxes.

5)     Small hole on top of box: Now cut a small hole on top of nest box or the cardboard box. Enough holes should be created so that you can peek inside. This will help you to check everything easily. You can peek inside to have a look whether the parents and babies are safe.

6)     Punching holes in the nest box: now, punch holes in the cardbox so that you can attach it in the cardboard inside. The nest box should be so much tight and perfect that it should not fall off from weight of the lovebirds. To ensure complete security and safety, you can tug on the box lightly.

7)     Nesting materials inside the card box: you need to add nesting materials inside the nesting box. There are many such materials and these include shavings of wood, clean hay, shredded paper, etc. you can also add nesting materials inside the cage so that the African lovebirds can have proper home. Lovebirds would use it whenever they require else they can let it go.

This is the proper way of building nests for Lovebirds. As soon as you are done with preparing nest boxes for birds to lay their eggs, now you should know about the things that should be added in to it. As soon as you see that the birds lay the babies, you can come up and start giving them good amount of feed. You must place fresh water and enough of food in the cage as well as nest.

There is variety of nest boxes for these lovebirds. Nest building is one of the greatest activities for preparing your lovebirds to lay eggs. When these lovebirds are open, they prepare their nest themselves in any of the hidden place. You must provide enough space be it in cage or nest box, when you start keeping lovebirds as your pets. The building material as well as everything else plays an important role in nest building of the lovebirds. There are good species of lovebirds and each of them has their own way of building nests.

Now, you can take your African lovebird’s best care by starting building nests for them and the arriving babies. This would also help the bond of love and trust to be grown between you and the lovebirds. Here is where the pair of lovebirds is more attached with you because of your love and care.

Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

A lovebird could be your best companion due to their playful and affectionate nature. It helps you to live with human interaction with perfect playness. When you think of having lovebirds as pet it is preferred that you should have hand raised birds because they understands you best. You need to give proper and best care to these lovebirds because if they are not given proper care, they may become temperamental and their behavioural change shows. If you give proper training and love to the lovebirds, they will become all yours. Let us see some of the best training methods that you can give to your love birds and help them stay ahead as your best friend.

Screeching and vocalisation training

There are some species of lovebirds that are very vocal than the others. There are some amounts of noise that everyone make. This is majorly in early morning hours and evenings. This is when the birds are very much excited. You must expect some level of vocalisation while you must be attentive towards some of their other screeches like squawking. This is where they scream because they want something from you. When these lovebird’s needs are met easily then surely they will grow up in perfect manner. This will keep them away from any underlying health problems. The screeching that is done by them is to get your attention, as they may need something. Although it is best to be very attentive towards your lovebird but you cannot be always giving out your time to them. Highly effective way to come out of this problem is training your African lovebird as how to ask for attention more politely.

As soon as your lovebird screeches, do not reward them with any kind of positive or negative behaviour. In fact, look away from him and leave the room. As soon as the bird is quieter, come back and give him proper attention as he starts doing something good and appreciative. Many of the lovebirds are there those who do not speak, here you need to be attentive with their whistling, spreading wings or other tricks. You must reward the lovebird’s behaviour with attention and some treat. This will benefit you.

Lovebird Bite training

You will know how hard the lovebird bites and when it bites, it is more harmful than any larger bird’s bites. This is some way of unacceptable behaviour that should be treated as such. Many times, there is some fear or anxiety when these birds bite you. However, if there is no such reason then the bird may need your attention. When there is a quick nip, it is done in order to get your attention. When you understand the circumstances under, which your bird bites you then that will help you to understand what he wants. It is bad to react in bad manners when the bird is biting. Instead, be calm and quiet and put your hand to the bird. When the bird understands that his bite did not have any reaction on you, then it will become silent.  If this step is gently followed then it can be a rewarding training experience for you.

Lovebird feather Plucking

The first thing that comes to mind when you see your lovebird plucking feather is that whether he is generally doing so or he is suffering from any health issue. It would surely require medical attention as soon as you see him plucking feathers. If there is no medical issue then there may be any emotional problem with the lovebird. However, as soon as you play and cuddle them they would be fine. If even that does not solve the problem then he may be fearful of something or someone of your house.  Even if that does not solve problem then you must try to get him accustomed to everything easily. You need to be very much committed to your lovebird when you start training them.

To solve any of the issues related with these lovebirds, the best thing is getting them well trained. This will teach you to know the behavioural changes that the bird has and it helps you build a strong bond between you and your lovebird. This bond will help you and your lovebird to be best of friends and enjoy each time. There is bond of trust that the bird shares with you and he will feel more protected with you when you become a friend to him and give him best care and feed.

Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

Lovebirds are said to be the best pets that you can keep with you. With proper care and love, you can tame them and they can be your best of friends. As these African lovebirds are so much active and playful, you never feel lonely, even when you stay alone at home. The moment you get back from your office, you start playing with the birds who takes away all your mental stress. Amongst all nine species of lovebirds, one of the best pets is considered peach faced lovebirds, masked lovebirds and Fischer lovebirds.  Within peach faced lovebirds, you can find many colour mutations in them. You can choose your own favourite colour and variations as per your requirement.

The size of all of these lovebirds is very small and compact and they are about 5-6 inches in length. Their expected lifespan is around 15-16 years. Let us know some basic facts that every beginner should know about lovebirds. These lovebirds are curious and playful birds and within a small bird, good personality is being found. They have intense personality and they are the birds that need proper cuddling all time. Sometimes, their behaviour may give rise to jealousy and aggressiveness. It is found that female parrots are jealous than the male parrots.

Finding a hand raised baby

When you think of keeping a lovebird as your pet, you should try to go for hand raised baby. Some of the best pets are found to be those who are properly hand raised. However, you need to give them proper caring and training so that you can maintain a tame lovebird. If you want older lovebird then it is better to find one who has been hand rose. This is easier. It is tough to give training to lovebirds that are not hand raised. Regular training is necessary for these birds to be cared well off. When you go for non-hand raised lovebirds then you need to have greater patience and time to train them well.

Some common myths

For any beginner, it is necessary to differentiate between reality and myths. There are many common myths associated with the lovebirds. One of the common myths associated with the lovebirds is that they must be kept in pairs. It is true that if you have more than one lovebird then they become very attached with each other. They find good soul in each other and become deeply bonded with each one. However, it is not that you cannot keep one single lovebird. Even single lovebirds do well. You just need to give them proper affection, care and love and with interaction they come out to be best-trained pets. Family members and the owners have to be more careful with these little ones. Although, if you feel you are busier with your own job then you can get a companion and keep your lovebirds in pair so that they can get affection from each other.

Vocalisation and speech is necessary

When you are getting your lovebirds and giving them best of training and feeding, then vocalisation is a necessary thing that should be done. They may not give aloud, huge voice as other parrots but compared to the size of little bird, these lovebirds can produce high-pitched voice, and that too sometimes shrill voice. They do this to have more affection and attention from your side. The normal chirping and squawks may not be that loud but they chatter with you and their companion. Although they are not much known for their mimicry but there are some exceptions that are there within lovebirds. It is famous that female lovebirds are more prone to mimic than the male counter parts.

Proper care with feeding and caging

Before you start to adapt a pet for yourself, you must get full information with the feeding habits of lovebirds and the caging that is to be provided to them.

Nutrition is one of the important things that should be cared for. Along with feed, you need to be careful with caging too. Proper spacing and everything should be known with the caging.

Now, when you know the proper caging and every little information related with the lovebirds, now even you can start to adapt these lovebirds as your pets. Surely, they will prove to be as not only pets but also your best friends.

Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

Everyone likes lovebirds and this is due to their fascinating colours in, which they come out. There is variety of lovebirds all across and out of total nine species that you have; eight of them are from Africa. These small parrots are cheerful, active, playful and beautifully decorative. Although they might be small, still these lovebirds have attitudes for their playfulness. When you have lovebirds at homes, you do not feel loneliness due to their playfulness nature. One of the main thing with the birds are that they want your love and in return, they will give you love. If you have some time, then you can come up as maintaining your own healthy flock of birds at your home.

You feel the lovebirds are very pretty when they are properly cared and loved. This is necessary, as even their immune system is very sensitive. Any kind of improper caring may result in their feather plucking, moody behaviour of birds. You can easily care for these charming and beautiful birds and this makes it necessary for everything to happen smoothly. Now, let us gain some insight in to how to make a collection of lovely African lovebirds.

Selection of lovebirds

When you are selecting the lovebirds, you need to be very cautious with the healthy stock of birds. Young hand raised birds always make good choice of selection. This is because they are easy to be tamed. You need to pay small attention to the activity of these little birds. This would help you to know their health. You must select birds from both the breeds as it will make breeding easier. You need to go for various colours of birds as that are always attracting.

Feeding for the lovebirds

When you are taking concern of your lovebird, you need to be very cautious with the feeding. Some of the ideal food is many nuts and seeds of varieties, as their beak will easily hook them. Apart from those, vegetables and grains are a must in your lovebird is feed because it adds to nutritious diet to the bird. Pellets, nut, green vegetables, pastas, proteins, eggs are some of the best-maintained food chart for the lovebirds. Every day, you should supply fresh water for your birds to drink. You must avoid any kind of high fat food for your lovebird, as they do not get enough exercise enough cages.

Proper home for lovebirds

There is nothing like having your own sweet home and same thing applies to love birds. Hence, selection of accurate and proper cage for African lovebirds is very necessary. The cage must have enough space where these birds could easily roam about. It should be so much so that they can roam, stretch their wings and fly small distance within cage. Lovebirds love to climb; hence, it is good if you have horizontal bars inside the cage. You can also keep plenty of toys inside the cage as these African lovebirds have playfulness nature and they love to play with toys. Positioning if cage should be maintained. Hence, you must position your cage properly as it will help you in taking best care for your lovebird.

Breeding lovebirds

Warmer months are good for these African lovebirds to breed. Many of the lovebirds need high humidity in nest during the incubation period. Hence, it is needed that 5 cm layer of damp seat should be added to the base of the box. There are certain preferred nest materials like bark of tress and pieces of straw. Soon, when time will commence, breeding season would follow and the respective pair will mate. The hen would spend longer period inside the nest box and it is necessary for you to supply healthy food like soaked seed and cuttle fish bone. Inside a clutch, four to six numbers of eggs are on an average being laid down. This is done on alternate day basis and hen starts incubating only after third egg is laid. The total incubation period is for 23 days.

Apart from taking care of all these small tips at your end, you need to move further with the training and instruction period of African lovebirds. You need to train them knowing their own physical handling and everything. Being a good trainer is necessary along with a great caretaker. This will make your lovebird reciprocate towards your love and care. There are special love birds society that has been made to take care of these great and attractive birds.

Posted by EightNine on Nov 13th 2010

Lovebirds are the small and stocky version of parrots and they have large hooked beak on their upper region. There is different form of this lovebird in different region. These lovebirds are famous for various imitations of human voices that they make. It has been noted that eight of every nine-love bird comes from Africa. The remaining one is from Madagascar. These love birds come in various colours and they make a fun birds for your house.  Let us know in to detail about the African love Birds.  African lovebirds require completely caring owner who provides full attention to the bird.  It is necessary for these birds to receive such attention from their owner. If they do not receive this then it may become their behavioural problem. Let us know some of their features and characteristics that separate them from their counterpart birds.

1)     Length and weight: Lovebirds varies between 5 to 7.5 inches and their weight is almost 40 to 70 grams in weight. This puts them in the category of smallest bird that is available in world.

2)     Build up: the lovebirds are small, stocky build and they comprise of short and blunt tail. The beak is larger for their overall size.

3)     Colours: The lovebirds vary in colours. They are available in varied colours. Many of these African lovebirds are green in colour but there can be mutation and they can come out to be in different colours. Some of the variation of these lovebirds have white ring around their eyes.

4)     Variety of species of lovebirds: there are total nine species of lovebird and out of them; you can have eight as pets.

How to train them so that they can be one of the best pets with you

1)     Interaction with birds is must: You need to be very much interactive with the birds. This will help you to train your lovebird in best way. Lovebirds are socially active creature and they can be bored if you do not interact with them continuously. Lovebirds love to remain cuddling with each other. This provides them sense of security and hence they require special care.

2)     List of things that should be there in your lovebird’s cage: Lovebirds are playful and perceptive creature and they love to fly and play around. You need to make sure that all-important things are there when you are providing them best of training. There must be sufficient place for roomy cage, and must have many toys to play around with. You must provide many things in their cages to munch about like fresh willow or oak branches or corn, include a bright platform.  You need to correct your lovebird for accurate eating habit with all good food.

3)     Training to whistle: you may also train your lovebirds to whistle and talk although it is rare that any bird talks. You can start training lovebirds at a very young age. Paper shredding is one thing that lovebirds like. Females have greater tendency to carry on the paper shredding than the males.

4)     Lovebirds must have good behaviour so that they eliminate all kind of UN pleasant behaviour. If you have a well-trained love bird then that can be a great companion. Let your bird sit on your fingers and shoulders. This is also a great training for them.

Different breeds of Lovebirds

There are sexually dimorphic species of these lovebirds and these are as following:

Abyssinian lovebirds

Red Faced lovebirds

Madagascar lovebirds

Others are sexually monomorphic species and these are as follows:

Black cheeked or Black faced lovebirds

Fischer’s lovebirds

Masked lovebirds

Nyasa lovebirds

Peach faced or Rosy faced lovebirds

Another characterisation about these lovebirds could be done in following ways. They are also characterised by the eye rings. The lovebirds that are without eye rings:

Madagascar lovebirds

Red-faced lovebirds

Peach faced lovebirds

Abyssinian lovebirds

The lovebirds with eye rings are as follows:

Masked or Black masked lovebirds

Fischer lovebirds

Nyasa lovebirds

Black cheeked lovebirds

Hence, now you can start treating your fun filled lovebirds in the way you want. Treating them well and giving them, complete care is a necessary thing. You can get ahead with these African lovebirds and training them well would give you complete satisfaction.

There are only 3 of these nine species that can be used as pets and you should be well informed about it. Once you get good training of taking care of these lovebirds that come to you for love and care.