Loki is Here!

[Mary in Florida]

We brought home the second of our two new babies today, that's our little Loki, an approximately 10 week old whiteface cobalt lovie. He's been weaned for about two weeks now, and chowing down on all kinds of seeds, pellets, fruits and veggies like an expert. He's sweet as he can be ( at least right now). He's sitting cuddled in my husband's hand, grinding his beak. We found earlier that he liked playing "tunnel" ( jumping into a rolled up newspaper), and he seems pretty calm and just checking everything out.

Seems like a good start to me! I'll post a picture soon.

[linda040899]

Congratulations, Mary!!
Loki sounds like he's settling in quite well and beginning to take over the household in typical lovie style!! :lol I've got a 2 yr old OF Green Peachie named Rio who was sweet as a youngster and hasn't changed one bit! Loki may surprise you!

[Mary in Florida]

Oh I hope so! Loki let us know that he preferred snuggling into a shirt for the night rather than spending it in his cage- he jumped out of the cage into my shirt- and I let him snuggle for a while, then put him in the cage and he's settled right down.
I'm not sure who's going to end up being the boss of the house though. Loki's going to have to duke that out with Pixie, the parrotlet, who's already claimed that spot!

What's really funny is that Coconut, our 24 yr old cockatiel, is absolutely smitten with Pixie.
He's been pretty much indifferent to the other birds in his life, but when he spotted Pixie, it was love at first sight. He wants to sit next to her, share her food, and it looks like he's tried to groom her. She alternates between sitting still for it and chasing him off. She's latched onto his tail feathers, crest, and wing feathers, (or tried to, we're not about to let this liason go unsupervised), and even jumped on his back and rode around on it a bit. Poor little guy was so depressed when it looked like she was rejecting him, and was so happy when he was able to share a pile of cockatiel Vita seeds etc etc with her, and she let him sit next to her on an arm or shoulder ( you could hear two beaks grinding, LOL) that he's gone back to his usual self, talking, whistling and carrying on. I'm not sure how the addition of this new little upstart (Loki) will influence the birdie dynamics of this trio, but we will see. Coconut seems pretty non-commital about Loki right now. But we make sure and tell Coconut he is still King Bird...

[linda040899]

Sounds like things are going to get interesting at your house, Mary!
I have a female Tiel that grew up with Callie, my Dilute Blue female, and they were quite close. The only problem I had was that Isis wouldn't wean as long as she lived with Callie, simply because of cage location. Like Pixie, Callie would hitch rides on long tail feathers and Isis didn't seem to mind at all!

As for Rio, he has several cagemates but he's just plain people oriented. His daily goal is out of his cage and velcroed to whatever human happens to be in the vicinity and happened to open his cage door! He loves to snuggle, give kisses, have his head scritched and vibrate! Character is an understatement!

Can't wait to hear more about how things are going! :)

[Mary in Florida]

Rio sounds like a real sweetheart! And he'll let anybody who comes by cuddle and scritch him? That's something else- Sweetpea wouldn't let people she didn't know touch her- unless, of course, it was my friend who's afraid of birds- both Coconut and Sweetpea wanted to climb all over her, LOL!

I remember your story about Isis- so I guess she was ok with Callie after she was weaned?

Looks like our p'let Pixie's well on her way to being a velcro bird- her preferences are on one of us, and she'll take scritches any time. She's sitting on my laptop alternating between picking at the keys and running under the fingers. As for eating- wow, there's nothing like other birds you think might be competition to the food source to get a recently weaned bird going into eating anything that might be around! And Pixie's turning into an eating machine in competition with Loki, who started right in eating when he got here. Even our Coconut figures he needs to get his share. It seems that Loki, who's displaying the lovie "attitude" in a big way, assumes he will be the boss, but Pixie isn't so sure that will be the case.

All I can say is, these guys are a riot! And what's great is that with both my husband and I retired, we can spend lots of time playing with these guys.

[linda040899]

Isis and Callie still get along but I had to move Isis in with one of my older male Tiels so he could encourage her to eat by herself! I couldn't keep her with Callie because she was always with eye shot/ear shot of a couple of babies that I was hand feeding and I don't have to tell you what happened every time she saw me put water on the stove to heat up or start to mix formula.

She's still with that male Tiel (named Peter) and he just adores her! She's never laid any eggs, which is just fine with me. Last thing I need to deal with are baby Tiels, although Peter is a normal Grey Tiel so that would make the genetics that Isis passed to any offspring stronger.

As for Rio, he just loves people and is willing to socialize with anyone who's willing. He's another very confident lovie and I really enjoy having him hanging out with me!