A few questions..

[PlasteredDaddy]

Hey guys new to the community here and thought I'd jump right in with my second post being a few questions that I have about my family pet Lovebird Treats.

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/2152/img5178i.th.jpg (http://img259.imageshack.us/i/img5178i.jpg/)http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/900/img5179m.th.jpg (http://img412.imageshack.us/i/img5179m.jpg/)

First off, I asked the store owner how old Treats was and he said he was right out of the nest, he was parent fed, and that he doesn't bite much. Leading to my first question, how old does Treats look to all of you? I know Treats is still young, my father used to breed Lovebirds when I was younger, and he still has black on his beak but I'm not sure exactly how young he is.

Secondly, we've had Treats exactly for a week, today, and I really need to clean his cage and perches. Treats loves his swing but it's above his secondary perch so it's full of turds and really needs to be cleaned. Treats is still scared of hands if I move them towards him but as long as they stay still in his cage hes fine, he even gets pretty close to them when they are still. So, how exactly am I going to get him out of the cage to clean it, or clean it while he is still inside without freaking him out?

My last question is another thing I've been wondering about. I read that you should let Lovebirds out of their cages almost every day, so around day three of Treats home with us I left open the cage door to see if he would come out. After a while he eventually did but when he landed on the floor he freaked out and started flying all over the place and bumping into things. I was nervous so I grabbed him and put him back into the cage, something I knew I shouldn't have done, and he was frightened of me again for the next few days. Treats is finally getting back to the stage I had him at day three before I grabbed him. How can I get him back into the cage if I let him out if need be without touching him and falling back to square one again?

I know this is all a lot to ask, but from what I've read here during my research you all seem very knowledgeable and any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[linda040899]

You are correct about the black splotch still remaining on his beak. That will finally fade away by age 3.5 months, so I would say, based on the remaining coloring, that he's between 10-12 weeks old. Baby lovebirds come out of the nest at age 6 weeks and it takes dad approximately 2 weeks to teach them to eat on their own. I usually hold my babies for another 1-2 weeks, just to make sure that they are capable of eating by themselves and not reverting back once they go to new homes.

How about cleaning his swing/perches while he's out of the cage? You might also try offering a perch to step up onto instead of your hands. Are his flight feathers clipped? If not, it's something you might want to consider, just one time, so he's dependent on you to go where he would like to go. It will definitely help with the taming process, but I won't say it's mandatory. He can be tamed without clipping. Clipping just might make it easier. :)

[bbslovie]

Hi, Treats is one cute birdy!


Barb :)

[Pips mom]

Awww......he's so adorable! First you should know that with each bird, everything is always different and finding ways of working out the getting in and out of cage thing and cleaning the cage are things you kind of have to figure out what works best for you and for Treats. Pip was fairly tame when we got him, although he hated hands, but we never really had too much trouble with getting him in and out of cage, and when we did, we had him clipped and that solved it. With Rudy though things were different. Rudy was not tame at all and very afraid. It was hard figuring out how I was going to get back into cage and at first we had times when we spent way too much time chasing him around to the point where he was all out of breath and tired out from it and I was really scared of stressing him out too much. We got him clipped and that helped. Soon after that I have just gotten into a routine with Rudy......he's such a good boy, and will go back into his cage for me. All I have to do is put my hands up near him until he flies and he will always fly back to his cage for me when I do this and land on top, then we have a little routine where I can get him to go back in for me......he knows when I want him to go back in his cage.....he's so good about it that I haven't even had to clip him again!
As far as cleaning his cage goes, I would just try to clean it the best that I can with him in it. Putting your hands in his cage will scare him at first, but after time if you keep on doing it, he will start to realize that the hands are not going after him or bothering him and he will get comfortable with it. Rudy sits right next to his water dish every time I put the dish back in with fresh water and lets me get very close with my hands now. With Rudy's cage, I'd just take out whatever needed cleaning.....including perches...if it was dirty, I'd take it out and clean it and put it back. He will get used to you doing things in his cage.....this is one thing all of my birds always got very used to and accepted fairly quickly once they knew the hands weren't going to "get them"