HELP!

[Catarina]

Hi,

My name is Catarina, I'm from Portugal and I'm desperate with my new lovebird.
I got my lovie when he was 2 weeks old. He was very scared but then he started to enjoy time with me. He now has 1 and half months and he started to hate my fingers. I thing it was because I got nervous one time and i followed a hint that was "if you bird bits you, don't react taking your hand away. just grab his beak and press it a little bit". I think he didn't like that.

So now he's really agressive with my fingers and I just don't know what to do... He's almost 2 month old and I can't get him to be calm and gente.... Plus, I think it's a female and I'm too, and I don't know if that's a problem.

Please, HELP! I don't want to give him away just because I couldn't handle 2 months!

Thank you.

 

[Toddrick]

If my chicks peck at me I use my finger to peck their beak away, but grabbing the beak sounds like torture, so I can see why it is upset. I would try letting it eat treats out of your hand and just being patient with it until it learns to trust you again maybe.

 

[Catarina]

Hello,

Yes it sounded a bit weird when I read the topic. But I found so many tips on the internet that I don't know wich are right or wrong.
Thank you very much for your tip. I'll try that. Hope he likes something because he eats little seeds (those that look like little golden balls - don't know how to say in english) but when i let him out of the cage he doesn't care for food...unless it's his seringe food.

But thank you. I'll try

 

[GuineaFowling]

Lovebirds are known to have feisty personalities. I believe the aggression was indeed caused by your reaction to his bite. You should put your bird on a fresh food diet. Since it is still young and you are working on weaning I presume, you should definitely introduce the bird to greens and fruits. Make sure you find out what foods are 'safe' and what foods are 'toxic'. A seed only diet is very unhealthy and can cause major problems. The little golden ball seeds you speak of sound a lot like millet and thats not healthy as a sole diet. Too teach your bird to behave you should not react to the bites whatsoever. I know the bites hurt a lot but bare with me I too have a lovebird thats not tame and she bites and I allow her to bite my knuckles since it hurts less and I dont react. After a while she stops biting because I give her no reaction. Pet your lovebird as well. They love being petted on the head and under the beak.

Good Luck!

 

[Catarina]

Thank you so much for your help. Everyone has helped me a lot She's very much better! She's super sweet but with a bit of temper xp
I have another problem though. I went to the avian vet with her last friday. She was more than OK and the vet told me to put branches instead of plastic perch. I went out next day and got her some eucalyptus branches. I'm sure they are eucalyptus and they are non toxic for what I searched and for ehat the vet sugested. But today she was puffy and calm and I know that's a bad sign.
Altough I was right now with her out of the cage (for almost 2 hours) so she could cheer up a bit! Wich she did! I just puted her in the cage and she's now playing with her favourite toy ^^
But I'm still worried about that puffy time...should I take her to the vet right now or just wait a little to see if it is constant?

Thank you so much

 

[GuineaFowling]

You should never place natural branches in the cage without proper cleaning. What I do is I let the branches sit in a water bleach mixture for an hour. The mixture is i part bleach to a million parts water. After that I let the branch dry off in the sun for a couple of hours and then put it in the oven and bake it. That makes sure all the bacteria and stuff are dead so it will not harm your bird. Your vet should have told you about that. I think its best to buy wood perches from the petshops. They have a large variety of natural perches. Make sure you get perches of different sizes. To be honest I prefer buying the perches then to finding and cleaning. If your bird gets worse then do take her to the vet.

 

[Rosa moschata]

I've often read about "sterilizing" fresh tree branches before using them for indoor cage birds, but I don't bother. I know of quite a few people who keep birds in planted outdoor aviaries, and they have no problems with their birds chewing on (nontoxic) tree branches. Many include rotting logs in their aviaries, and the birds tear them apart as well. When I do deadheading in the garden, I bring in pieces of nontoxic plants for my amazon parrot to destroy. He'll be 24 in Spring, and I've been doing this for the 16 1/2 years I've had him. Do be sure that any tree branches haven't been sprayed with any pesticides or fungicides, that they are from nontoxic species, and you'll be fine. If anything, I'd be more afraid of chlorine residue than anything on a fresh (nontoxic) tree branch.

 

[GuineaFowling]

I agree but I am always sure to clean the tree branches because of the wild birds that may go on the tree branches. I have quite a wild bird population since I have so many trees, especially fruit trees. The scrub jays are the worst since they go into my coop to eat and steal bedding from the nestboxes, they gave my hens lice several times because of that.

This is why I prefer storebought perches and branches. They can be pricey though.