i need lovebird help.

[rioandmango!]

my grandma bought two lovebirds yesterday and she completely mistreats them, but I bought her a flight cage, but that’s all I know. Can you guys give me a basics on how to take care of lovebirds??

 

[Birb321]

Food: lovebirds should be feed pellets, veggies and seeds. Seeds should be only used for treats
Cage size: you should give your lovebird a flight cage
Toys and perches: give your bird shreading toys, foraging toys, natural perches, and platform perches . Dont give your bird fuzzy toys, cotten rope toys, mirrors, plastic toys, plastic perches, dowl perches, and sand perches.
Outside cage time: make sure your bird gets at lease a few hours outside its cage daliy, and you play with your bird too.
I just did a quick summary about bird care
I hope this helps

 

[SailBoat]

Nice base recommendation, but one should consider a higher percentage of high-quality seeds and grains as more than just treats as it is important to know what commonly exists within their natural range and targeting providing a diet that tends to match that as the base.

Remembering that the discussion of Seed vs. Pellets is a Hot Button item and that the long standing issue with a 'Seed Diet' is that it commonly refers to the very cheap Sunflower and /or Sunflower seed and Corn mix Wild Bird Mix. That is not recommended by anyone.

 

[StormyPica]

Perosnally, I don't feed pellets, and I'll tell you why. Processed food is good for NO ONE! Plus most pellets have tons of fillers that aren't good for parrots. If you want a high-nutrient food, go with sporuts. Sprouts are great, parrots love them, and they are nutrient rich without all the bad stuff. Plus, too many pellets can make a small parrot gain quite a lot of weight. Heck, even veggies make small birds gain wieght if they don't exersise.

That brings me to my next point, exersise. Small parrots are EXTREMELY active, and need a ton of flying time and exersise. Even in my 10 by 10 by 8 foot bedroom, my budgies do not get nearly enough exersise to stay at a good weight and tucker themselves out. I need to do longer-distance recall in the living room/kitchen so they can get their energy out, which they absoulutely love. Point is, recall train your bird. Ascent, descent, blind recall, all that. Even the best, most cautious bird owners have lost their birds. All it takes is one mistake.

On that note, outdoor desensitization is a MUST. My oldest budgie, Stormy, flew away once, and was only recovered safe and well (although hungry and a bit worse for wear) because he was extensively recall trained from all heights and angles and was desensitized to the outdoors. If your bird gets out and is scared of all it's new surroundings, it may fly in fear until it drops dead from exhuastion. Believe me, it happens, so make sure to bring your birds outside to new places (in a carrier or harness if harness trained) as frequently as possible. Plus, being outside (in a quiet, calm, sunny place, not a big city) is really good for bird's ohysical and mental health.

Sailboat pointed out that small birds should have some seed, which I totally agree with, however, since small birds in captivity don't fly 100-500 miles a day, they should have signifigantly less seed, only a teaspoon a day (not counting trianing treats).

 

[Cottonoid]

A caveat to diet recommendations - with any bird that is new to your home, it is important that they are eating, period. Changing their diet suddenly can have disastrous results as some birds will starve themselves to death before eating something new. My vet recommended I continue feeding the seed mix my parrot was on before I got him, and then also offer the new seed/pellet mix in a separate bowl, and very slowly introduce veggies.

I've never had a lovebird so can't speak to species specifics, but I think it's great you got them a flight cage! I think right now any little thing you can do to improve their lives is a good thing. We all have ideals about what we think is the perfect way to live with parrots, but it sounds like you will need to work with the situation you have and gradually make it better for the birds.

Do you think you could get them toys, and a few different style perches? Toys made for budgies and cockatiels should be an ok size. If you have a hobby type store near you, my bird loved chewing up strips of balsa wood - it was the first thing he ever played with and they're not super expensive. You can also check out the DIY/Foraging/Enrichment topics in the forum for ideas to make little toys and puzzles for them with things you have around the house - like putting a few sunflower seeds inside a toilet paper roll and crumpling up paper to stuff in the ends, so they have to pull it out.

I had a lot of questions about how to make things better for my parrot before I could adopt him (all I could really do was bring him toys), so I'm really glad you're here asking questions

 

[StormyPica]

A caveat to diet recommendations - with any bird that is new to your home, it is important that they are eating, period. Changing their diet suddenly can have disastrous results as some birds will starve themselves to death before eating something new. My vet recommended I continue feeding the seed mix my parrot was on before I got him, and then also offer the new seed/pellet mix in a separate bowl, and very slowly introduce veggies.

Totally, I forgot to mention this! Slow diet conversion is a must, many birds would rather starve to death than eat a "new scary thing"

 

[rioandmango!]

hey guys, an update for you. so my grandma did the worse thing ever, she split the bird cage in half with a net and put her finch on top. she shouldn’t ever be doing this from my research. what should i do?