Moving out of the nest time

[Lawrence]

Hi all,

I posted about these two nest mates a few weeks back and now it's almost 'graduation day'. When is a good time to separate the two, my plan is to keep them in separate cage?

You can see the picture of the both them below:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4459680221_c0bce25d49.jpg

Cheers,

Lawrence

[Birkah]

I have no idea about when to seperate, but I just have to say that they are absolutely GORGEOUS!!!

[linda040899]

How old are the babies and are the parents accepting of them remaining in the cage with them? Sometimes separation is necessary. Other times it isn't. The only times you might run into problems is if the parents want the babies gone or when the babies molt out into adult coloring and you can't tell them apart from mom and dad!

If I were to move my babies to a separate cage, I would wait until they are about 10-12 weeks old, depending on the parents.

[Lawrence]

I bought them when they were just starting to accept hand-fed food (in this case red rice baby formula) about 5 weeks old. Since then I have been hand-feeding them every 3 hrs or so until now and they are kept in their own small cage. As there are no parents involved and my title was to mean only figuratively, is it OK to split them up? This is the first time I got a pair of nest mates so I dont know when is a good time, my other lovebirds were bought as singles. My main concern is if it is possible for them to bond with each other or will instinct separate them naturally when they grow up?

I have no idea on the sexes as of now. The cobalt one (Conan) is older and more active than the mauve one (Brien). I have a total of 8 lovebirds in my house including these two, of which four are paired. There are also a young green pastel lovie and an older 1.5 yr cobalt in their own cages.

The green pastel's picture is below (I dont know why this website reverts to giving html link instead of displaying the picture of the bird):

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/4459680251_c08fb778c6.jpg

[linda040899]

(I dont know why this website reverts to giving html link instead of displaying the picture of the bird):
This website is a bit different in that we only allow images in Photo Gallery. Not everyone has a high speed Internet connection so some threads may take a long time to open or they may not open at all for members who are using dial up service. This site is information heavy to it's very important that everyone be able to open all threads for reading.

You can actually split them at any time, although I would find another unrelated companion for each. Young birds, in particular, tend to want company and I think you will find they are happier when kept with another lovebird.

[Lawrence]

Thanks for the advice on the separation issue :)

I understand on the picture policy thing, I found out that it wasn't my computer going nuts but rather the post was edited, heh

Cheers,

Lawrence

[linda040899]

Thanks for understanding about our photo policy. Some forums are so photo/image heavy that it slows down the ENTIRE site!