Daffu
06-23-2011, 09:49 AM
I took a slightly better (http://clumsypanda.ithiltari.com/Foto0035.jpg) photo of Ren.
It's.... hard to get decent pictures of him when he's not sleeping because he's a bundle of energy and his mind seems to go from "Ooooh.... that's shinny! I want it!" to "OMG I have not tasted that thing way over there in the last 3 minutes. I NEED TO INVESTIGATE!" withing milliseconds.
As such, telling the bird to stay still because I REALLY want to take pictures of him is er... hard at best. I have some napping pictures when he snuggles on my lap and falls asleep (which is more often than I thought possible - I think he literally tires himself out, runs back to me, naps and the process repeats).
But anyhow, that's not the point I wanted to make/the question I wanted to ask. Ren is still a baby, as is probably obvious from his beak (though then again, the photo is a week and a bit old). He's in the process of being weaned (which apparently takes much longer in lovebirds than it does on parakeets, I'm finding!), and seems perfectly content to sample green veggies, pellets, seeds, etc, as well as taking baby formula. My questions are the following:
His poop is rather 'runny' which I am quite certain is because of the baby formula. From my experience with my hand raised parakeets... their poop changed to smaller, black and more compact once they started eating stuff that wasn't their baby formula. Their poops are quite easy to 'wash' off and take away from places (get napkin, pick it up, toss). It doesn't stain. Ren is... well, much more friendly than the keets in the sense he spends most of his time outside of his cage with me and my family. The downside is his poop, which... unlike the keets, is runny. I was wondering if his poop will become more like the keets' one once fully weaned, or if I'm going to have to start training the poor lil guy to poop elsewhere. I already know his queues, so 9 times out of ten, he alerts me, I put him on the floor on top of a napkin and he poops on it. But.... the other 1 time out of ten I miss it and he er... poops elsewhere. He does not poop on me or when he's laying down on me -in fact, he makes it a point to get off and do it on the table, floor, sofa or whatever.
Another thing I want to ask is about flight. Ren is now able to fly around (short distances - a few meters at most, he's still sort of awkward and prefers to walk/run or... hitch rides on my foot/shoulder). I feared that with flight he'd become much more independent, but... he seems to favor flight to get to me or go explore something and rush back to me. I was wondering if this behavior is normal? He has a big attitude in that he's scared of nothing at all (I really do mean that), but he behaves like a miniature dog - he runs after me, or flies with/to me and seems to love sitting on my lap or chest to nap away. Yesterday, he fell asleep on his back on my lap while we watched a movie and he didn't get up until I had to go to the toilet (and even then, did so reluctantly and went back into snuggle mode as soon as I was back). Granted, the fact I spent the movie stroking and scratching him might've had something to do with it.
But still, I'm wondering if I'm just extremely lucky with this little guy or if this is mostly natural for lovebirds in general?
Another question revolves around paper. He's a shredding machine. If there's paper less than half a meter away from him, he's going to find it. And shred it. to tiny itty lil bits. And sometimes eat it; I'm worried over this since while I was aware they shredded the paper I was not aware they ATE it. Ren EATS it. What sort of paper would be okay to offer to him to rip and eat and shred to his heart's content? I highly doubt my magazines are okay for him to eat, after all. Also... is the eating paper a both genders thing, or mostly female?
It's.... hard to get decent pictures of him when he's not sleeping because he's a bundle of energy and his mind seems to go from "Ooooh.... that's shinny! I want it!" to "OMG I have not tasted that thing way over there in the last 3 minutes. I NEED TO INVESTIGATE!" withing milliseconds.
As such, telling the bird to stay still because I REALLY want to take pictures of him is er... hard at best. I have some napping pictures when he snuggles on my lap and falls asleep (which is more often than I thought possible - I think he literally tires himself out, runs back to me, naps and the process repeats).
But anyhow, that's not the point I wanted to make/the question I wanted to ask. Ren is still a baby, as is probably obvious from his beak (though then again, the photo is a week and a bit old). He's in the process of being weaned (which apparently takes much longer in lovebirds than it does on parakeets, I'm finding!), and seems perfectly content to sample green veggies, pellets, seeds, etc, as well as taking baby formula. My questions are the following:
His poop is rather 'runny' which I am quite certain is because of the baby formula. From my experience with my hand raised parakeets... their poop changed to smaller, black and more compact once they started eating stuff that wasn't their baby formula. Their poops are quite easy to 'wash' off and take away from places (get napkin, pick it up, toss). It doesn't stain. Ren is... well, much more friendly than the keets in the sense he spends most of his time outside of his cage with me and my family. The downside is his poop, which... unlike the keets, is runny. I was wondering if his poop will become more like the keets' one once fully weaned, or if I'm going to have to start training the poor lil guy to poop elsewhere. I already know his queues, so 9 times out of ten, he alerts me, I put him on the floor on top of a napkin and he poops on it. But.... the other 1 time out of ten I miss it and he er... poops elsewhere. He does not poop on me or when he's laying down on me -in fact, he makes it a point to get off and do it on the table, floor, sofa or whatever.
Another thing I want to ask is about flight. Ren is now able to fly around (short distances - a few meters at most, he's still sort of awkward and prefers to walk/run or... hitch rides on my foot/shoulder). I feared that with flight he'd become much more independent, but... he seems to favor flight to get to me or go explore something and rush back to me. I was wondering if this behavior is normal? He has a big attitude in that he's scared of nothing at all (I really do mean that), but he behaves like a miniature dog - he runs after me, or flies with/to me and seems to love sitting on my lap or chest to nap away. Yesterday, he fell asleep on his back on my lap while we watched a movie and he didn't get up until I had to go to the toilet (and even then, did so reluctantly and went back into snuggle mode as soon as I was back). Granted, the fact I spent the movie stroking and scratching him might've had something to do with it.
But still, I'm wondering if I'm just extremely lucky with this little guy or if this is mostly natural for lovebirds in general?
Another question revolves around paper. He's a shredding machine. If there's paper less than half a meter away from him, he's going to find it. And shred it. to tiny itty lil bits. And sometimes eat it; I'm worried over this since while I was aware they shredded the paper I was not aware they ATE it. Ren EATS it. What sort of paper would be okay to offer to him to rip and eat and shred to his heart's content? I highly doubt my magazines are okay for him to eat, after all. Also... is the eating paper a both genders thing, or mostly female?