My new rainbow lorikeet

[EllenD]

Awe, she's adorable. I've always wanted a Lori, but was always worried about the diet, same as with an Ekkie, thought the Lori's are much, much different. The poop doesn't bother me, lol. When you already have multiple birds the poop starts to just exist, no matter it's consistency!

I have a cousin who has had a Rainbow Lori for at least 4 years, maybe longer, and she keeps him in an extra-large and extra-tall Hagen Vision cage, as they have the entire bottom quarter encased in acrylic. It seems to work very well for keeping the poop inside the cage, if nothing else. I think they are made to keep food from being thrown outside the cage, but food, poop, whatever I guess, lol...So definitely some kind of cage with an acrylic portion will help immensely.

 

[chris-md]

Awe, she's adorable. I've always wanted a Lori, but was always worried about the diet, same as with an Ekkie,

Ekkie diet really isn’t that bad. If you feed a fresh diet to your parrots, your largely there already. Ok, ease up on fruits a little bit more, the diet is largely a fresh veg and grain diet with some fruits thrown in. But at that point your just getting fussy.

 

[EllenD]

Awe, she's adorable. I've always wanted a Lori, but was always worried about the diet, same as with an Ekkie,

Ekkie diet really isn’t that bad. If you feed a fresh diet to your parrots, your largely there already. Ok, ease up on fruits a little bit more, the diet is largely a fresh veg and grain diet with some fruits thrown in. But at that point your just getting fussy.

True about the Ekkie diet, I was always afraid that I would somehow mess it up. I don't know why, all of my parrots, including my 8 Budgies, get fresh veggies and fruits every day, along with things like oatmeal, grits, pasta, etc. every day anyway, so it's not like I couldn't figure it out...

The Lori's always perplexed me as far as the nectar goes, until my cousin got her's a few years ago. She called me when she found a clutch of hand-raised babies at a local pet shop to her, she asked me about them, and the only thing I could say to her is "I've always wanted one, but you need to Google "Lorikeet Diet" before buying one"...The next day she sent me a photo of her new Rainbow Lori, lol...She named him "Tie-Dye", and I drove the 5 hours to New Jersey that following weekend to visit her and the baby Lori, and I fell in-love. She didn't know about the poop until I arrived late Friday night and after being there for about an hour I mentioned it...She yelled across the house "What did you say about the poop?" I figured she would have seen reference to it while researching their diets, but I guess not, lol...She swore that she was taking the baby back to the pet shop the next day, they had a 3-day return policy on live animals. I was bummed but it wasn't my bird, then I thought "I'll take him home with me", so I offered that to her and she said fine....So I was all excited about driving home with him on Sunday afternoon. Yeah, well the next day, Saturday morning, I walked downstairs and saw my cousin hand-feeding Tie-Dye his nectar and kissing his little face, and that was the end of the poop issue...No Lori for me...

 

[LordTriggs]

yeah I love Lories too. Went to a theme park last year that ad a lorikeet walk where you get to feed them and was in there for a good hour buying more feed every couple minutes talking to one of the employees there about them and encouraging the younger children not to worry (some younger children get very scared with the way the lories swarm for the food) I can tell you it was very tempting with one who took a shine to me to just slowly put him in my coat pocket and leave very quickly

But boy the poop and the nectar make having one completely impossible for me, the food cause I'm out for too long each day and the poop because I am not the greatest cleaner (I prefer to opt for a weekly clean of my place outside of just picking things up)

 

[EllenD]

How's your Lori doing? We need updates!!!

Did you figure out whether it's Monet or Manet?

I spoke to my cousin a week ago about her Lori, who by the way is the sweetest, most tame, most comical bird I've ever seen...I've heard some people say that Lories don't make good "pet" birds, but that isn't my experience at all...her's came from a breeder who hand-raised it from 3 weeks old forward, and i'm sure that makes a difference, but her Lori is the sweetest, most cuddly, loving little bird I've seen...and she is free-flight training him, and he's doing extremely well.

My cousin has also potty-trained her Lori to go in the toilet. She gets her out of her cage early in the morning and goes right to the bathroom, and hold her over the toilet, and she tells her to "poop poop", and she just goes right in the toilet. She does this whenever she's at home, in the morning and several times every evening after work...works great she says...

She purees a ton of fruit for her Lori, and he really loves apples pureed alone in the blender, with the foam on top...she spoon-feeds him the foam, and then he drinks the remaining juice from a bowl. He loves it. She also doesn't feed him any type of Lori "pellets" that they make, she simply feeds him his liquid nectar, fresh fruit that is peeled in a bowl with the dry nectar powder sprinkled on top of it, and then fresh fruit juice she makes in the blender using nothing but fresh fruit. That's his entire diet. She feeds any and all fresh fruits except for citrus fruits, due to the problem with them enhancing the absorption of iron. Any other fresh fruits he loves, and she said he likes them much better with the dry nectar sprinkled on top...

She takes already-mixed liquid nectar with her whenever they go anywhere, like free-flying, in a tupperware container, along with already-peeled fresh fruit pieces. She makes the pieces very tiny, due to their tongues they can eat very tiny pieces of fruit much easier than larger ones. She said she's tried different commercially-sold "Lorikeet Treats", but he won't eat them. So it's just a matter of figuring out what their FAVORITE fresh fruit is, and reserving that as their reward/treat...for her Lori it's the apples pureed in a blender into the juice and the foam on-top...

I have to get a Rainbow Lori, I just love these birds...so sweet, and so funny...and their dancing and toe-tapping!!! It's hysterical and the most amazing thing i've ever seen, her bird actually has rhythm!!!