My old lovebird experiance and questions

[coolit]

When I was a kid, 15 years ago, my brother in law brought the family lovebirds... we ended up with 1 couple of peach faces and 1 couple of ... well blue birds with a black face and white around the eyes.

The peach faces must have been hand raised, but little devils full of hate towards humans they were. They would attack anything that gets close without any fear. The other couple was the total opposite, probably wild because they were terrified of anything getting close to their cage.


Anyways, the peachfaces nested, we set them up with a little attachment to their cage and when the babies were old enough, or started to get attacked and tortured by the parent's, weirdly enough, we took the nest out and took over feeding of the babies. We kept 1 and gave away 4. The one we kept was more turquoise... The most loving little bird I ever seen.


Here are my questions, why would the parent's attack their young... if we didn't take them out, it would look like the parent's would eventually kill em. One of them was getting it's feathers plucked out and was terribly weak when we took him in.

The other is, all lovebirds I have seen, were astonishingly amazing flyers. They were in a big 3 floor house and would fly from top floor, down the basement and back up in 1 go... many turns and corridors.

I now own a Green Cheek Conure, my second one. And I never seen any of them fly with much confidence. My previous Pythabird had clipped wings when picked up from breeder. I spoke to my ex and she said he flies but very little. My bird just regrew it's feathers, she can fly and she does but short distances... more like an extended jump.

Are lovebirds simply better flyers ?

 

[Piccolina]

From what I know, when you clip the wings from early age, their wings' muscles are less strong than if they were clipped after a certain age (few months). From what I understand, it also takes away their confidence in flying.

Is it possible that the breeder clipped the wings of the Green Cheek Conure and the Pythabird at very early age?

Maybe others can give more insights in this subject.



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[MonicaMc]

This article may give more insight about flight.
Thinking on the Wing | The Parrot University, llc

Some birds do enjoy flying more than others. Some birds may also have more determination to fly than others and can build up enough muscles to attain flight, even when clipped.

For other birds, it's a pretty scary thought to think you have flight, take off, then plummet to the ground, potentially injuring the bird. Enough traumatic experiences like that and and the bird may no longer want to fly.



As far as the lovebird pair going after the chicks? Hmmm.... lots of reasons. First time parents, inexperienced. Previous breeders accustomed to chicks leaving the nest at a specific time, so the parents don't have experience raising past that age. The lovebirds were hand raised instead of parent raised. Maybe the cage wasn't big enough? Maybe the parents were ready to start a new clutch? Quite a few reasons actually why it could happen.



Casey, my hand raised cockatiel sometimes flies for the shear joy of flying. She'll take off as if she's freaked out, flying faster than normal and squawking all the way! Then she'll slow down and land. She seems to enjoy flight!

My conures on the other hand? Seem to fly because they want to get from point A to point B. Not really flying for the shear enjoyment of flight itself, but because they have a reason to fly. Having said that, I noticed one day that my new girl had gotten out of her cage recently and had been out for quite some time! I noticed she pooped on the trash can. Twice. Pooped on a bag of Harrison's food, then chewed a hole in a folded up classified ads paper on the shelf above that.... and that's the extent of the "damages" I've noticed so far. I know she's been on top of her own cage (although her gym appears unused), as well as on top of the flight cage that houses the tiels. She was no worse for wear, other than being happy to get back into her cage for food and water, since she "locked" herself out of the cage and couldn't get back in!


I think one of the most amazing things to watch is birds flying for the shear joy of flight itself! There's truly nothing better than that!