Baby Lovebirds Playing

These guys are like little acrobats. They just love to play =0]

New Videos

Check out my videos on www.youtube.com and put heartsongaviary in the search box. I only have a few so far but there will be more to come {:>)=

Tabitha and Olivers' Babies

Yellow looks like Tweety bird and the other two look like dolphins LOL

Fully weaned Lovebirds

These babies are between the age of eight and nine weeks. They are all beautiful and healthy and ready for their forever homes.

I've been using a new nutrition program for my birds for the last few months.

Healthy eating and a varied diet has always been my focus.

Fresh vegetables, brown rice, pasta, sprouted seeds and legumes make up a big part of the birds' daily diet. Commercially available bird formulas including seed, pellets, avicakes, nutriberries and spray millet are also fed to the birds every day.

Recently I have started using herbal mixtures and nutritional supplements both on the parents before egg laying and on the babies in their formula. The results have been amazing. The parents of these babies laid six eggs. They were all big and pearly white. All six eggs hatched and survived. This is a first for us. The babies were all a good size from the start and they all feathered up earlier than usual. The feathers , feet eyes, and black on the beaks were more vivid in colour than I've seen before. They also fledged early.

It's been very interesting to watch this happen.

Lovebird Babies Are Ready For Forever Homes

Three months to go from tiny to fully weaned!

Another Clutch Ready to Go...They Grow Sooooooooooo Fast

Three Little Lovebirds

Three little ones are hangin' out on the deck. It's so warm outside and we needed a little fresh air. It looks like the two oldest of this clutch are Dutch Blues and the littlest one is Australian Cinnamon. They can't fly yet so it's still pretty easy to take them outside. These babies are starting to eat some solids so we are working on the weaning process.

Six in the Weaning Cage

We're all in the weaning cage. It's very hot outside here and we're staying inside with the blinds closed-keeping cool ;o]

It looks like the youngest is a Cinnamon =o]

Baby Lovebirds Go Outside

The first sunny day in ...forever -we went outside for some fresh air =

We can't fly yet but we sure can climb

Coming Along Baby Lovebirds

Kisses and Hugs for the Rubber Sibling

Lovebird Babies

Peach faced lovebirds - four green , two pied yellow/green

20,20,18,16,14,13 days old - all from the same clutch =O))

Ozzy and Pip

Ozzy and Pip have decided that they are friends and want to play together. They even had a bath together in my hands under running water. Ozzy keeps chasing Pip around trying to get him to look in his face as he says things like "good budgie"..."want some?" snd "I love you". It's so cute.

Olly

How to be taller? ... stand on your brother's head !

Weaning Age for Lovebirds

I'd like to put a little note here about weaning hand fed lovebirds.



I normally let my lovebirds go between eight and nine weeks old. I must be satisfied that not only do they know how to eat solid foods -but they are eating enough volume and variety to thrive.

I start the weaning process weeks before this...
When the oldest baby in the clutch is three weeks old I start offering little tiny pieces of avicakes . Avicakes are a combination of seed and pellets and have added vitamins. They are chewy and delicious to birds and can be broken into little pieces. These little pieces are put into the bird's mouth and he/she automatically knows what to do with them. Of course it still takes practice to be able to keep these in the mouth and "chew" them up without dropping them. The next day I add a little broccoli to the diet. I cut the very tips of the flowers with sharp scissors so that the pieces are as small as seed. Usually the next thing I offer is pellets and seed, followed by fresh corn and finely chopped snow peas, frozen mixed veggies -still including avicakes a few times a day. After about eight days or so the birds start eating plain cereals such as cheerios(multi-grain and plain), rice krispies, puffed wheat and musli. Cheerios and puffed wheat double as toys. Brown rice and whole wheat and regular pasta is added into the mix as well.

This is what is known as "abundance weaning". All the while I am still handfeeding the babies with Kaytee Exact hand feeding formula. As the birds get older and start to fly -approximately five weeks of age - they start taking less and less formula and more and more solid foods. But it is still a "process" and not an abrupt switch .

When the babies fledge(start flying) they naturally lose a little weight. That is why it is critically important to make sure they are eating enough to not lose a dangerous amount of weight at this time.

I find this whole weaning time a lot of fun. I notice that individual birds end up having their own favorite foods and I will tell the new owners what these are.



That is why it takes up to nine weeks to safely have a truly weaned baby lovebird.

In the wild the babies come out of the nest at six weeks of age and the parents "teach" them how to feed themselves over the course of the next few weeks. I should add here that the odd little one takes more than nine weeks - sometimes up to eleven weeks. That is not usually the case but I say...why rush it? You want the healthiest baby you can get. It seems like a long wait when you are so excited about getting your new bird. Lovebirds can live up to twenty years -if they are healthy.



Just for the record -budgies wean faster and in most cases are ready to go in six weeks. I follow the same process with them but it all happens just a little bit faster.



Hand feeding baby birds is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying things that I've ever done (:>}=

Spa Day for Lovebird Babies

After their first real bath these babies are wrapped all cozy in their "towels" and put back in their warm brooder. They must have been feeling good as they stayed that way-cocooned-for about an hour. Then they emerged all nice and fluffy.