How can I determine my Lovebird age? And some tips from you.

[shadi.maanna]

Hey, I posted a picture of it in previous posts hope you saw it as well. I fed it with a sugar spoon and it ate around 3 and the half spoons. It flies really good as well. I will be taking it to an Avian the first thing on Saturday. I'll also get it a stand and a clicker.

[shadi.maanna]

About pooping. I read the post about timing. I'm putting it on a tissue paper every now and then to poop on it. Hope it helps.

[Eric&Rebecca]

Yeah I saw it... he looks cute. That's great he's eating well. You can make fruit and veggie puree too (don't use the premade stuff from supermarkets, its very bad for them) make you own at home using a blender, that way he can get used to the taste of fruits as well. Mango works well for this The feathers under the beak and neck will come. Eggfood actually makes them stick together so you need to make sure you mist him regularly and give him a shallow dish of water to bathe in within his cage, it might be just that their tangled up. If the feathers are getting matted get some warm water, perhaps some aloe vera if you have a plant (don't use synthetic aloe vera and NEVER soap) and paper towel and gradually tease out the dried egg food. This happened to our cockatiel George, he was fully weaned but couldn't understand how to drink so we had to give him the eggfood for a while.

As for pooping; observe the movements he makes before pooping. When you get a stand you can put him there as soon as he does the poop dance! You can click when he does this on the poop spot or give a treat.

Or you can just stick to putting the towel underneath him, however be careful as this may lead to him holding his poop in so personally I prefer just to watch for the poop dance and catch it but many people do it successfully. There are many threads on the forum about this so take a browse of those.

The advantage is their poops don't smell (unless there's something wrong with them) so it's not the end of the world if they have an accident. If he does poop somewhere undesired you can just place him back on the stand. Punishing the pooping can lead to them holding their poop in too so it's a delicate process. Again read the topics on how this is done correctly.

Your paper technique will help.

Great news you're getting him to an avian vet too! Well done!

[shadi.maanna]

He made a big progress this afternoon! I went out for 3 hours and I found that he ate much of the seeds. I made him some eggfood and he ate a bit. I put some water in the spoon and I made him follow it to his drinking bowl. He drank just a bit.

About Target training I read that I should begin with it soon. Do I start now or I wait a bit?

[Eric&Rebecca]

That's great. Soon as he's eating the seeds and off the eggfood you can start conversion to pellets. I still feed my birds eggfood occassionally, especially during molting as it provides them with a good shot of nutrients. Also start introducing fresh fruits and veggies ASAP.

As soon as he not taking eggfood you can start recall flight training fully but I don't see any harm in doing a few exercises now. Maybe someone else can give you some opinions on this?

[Pajarita]

No, it's too soon. The bird is too young, you would be flooding it if you started now. Lovebird babies don't even come out of their nest until they are three months old so all you need to do now is to love him (he needs to be held A LOT but don't carry him around) and establish a bond. Plenty of time for training later but I warn you that lovies are not as trainable as other species. I would also do a lot of research on his final diet, lots of people recommend pellets but I think they are healthier alternatives. Fruit is good but lovies need more protein than other species so don't get stuck on it.

[shadi.maanna]

I will feed him so fruits and veggies tomorrow. Is bananas good for lovebirds?? It will give him proteins.

And what about the target practice? Is it good if I start it now before the recall?

[Eric&Rebecca]

If you do want to go down the raw diet line then you need to have a lot of knowledge in balancing vitamins and experience of avian nutrition, there's no reason why you can't aim for this providing you supplement the birds vitamins and diet in the meantime. I really wish I could do this personally but I don't have the knowledge or the experience to do this quite yet, hence I use the best pellet brand available to me from research I've done and supplement with vegetables, fruits, pulses, proteins (eggfood, a little chicken can be used (I don't personally), etc).

A good pellet brand is TOPS (Roudybush are also quite good)- TOPS as they are cold pressed and not extruded and are 100% organic. However if you are going to feed pellets to a smaller bird like a lovebird it should be a supplement of between 25-50% and not a complete diet (in my opinion and my avian vets). Our cockatiels have some seeds (although I remove the fattiest seeds like the sunflower and safflower), TOPS pellets and regular fruit and veg. They are also getting a soaking pulse mix which includes beans, lentils, various pulses and I believe some sort of rice- the avian vet now sells this at his his surgery so I thought I'd give it a go seeing as it was organic and I have started sprouting seeds. For smaller birds and owners not so knowledgable and experienced a good pellet provides a good nutritional basis and is certainly better than a seed diet.

There are many opinions on the subject however in my personal research I've discovered that the concerns over pellet related kidney diseases are more associated with smaller birds on an entirely pellet diet with little fruit and veg and no seed. Additionally, the bird is commonly more disposed to kidney disease to start with. The only concern about TOPS is the lack of Vitamin D3 and the crumbling nature of te pellets (this is remedied by a deeper bowl or generally feeding more so more is consumed, there are powders you can sprinkle on the foods but there are some good fresh foods you can use to boost vitamin D and plenty of fresh air and NON direct sunlight should help with this rather than artificial vitamins. Also stay away from any water soluble vitamins. Some pellets on the market you will need to watch as they contain harmful chemicals, are prepared at high temperatures or are extruded or they contain colourings which can mask dropping changes which you need to be monitoring.

Parijita has more experience than me with training so if she says its too early it probably is so probably just stick to what she says. Be patient, a healthy bird will be far more receptive to training.
With my weaning advice this is my experience from birds who have regressed so they are kind of 'half weaned' they'll stick pick up the seeds and eat them (no weight loss and a slight gain) but not as it should be. You need to watch your birds weight, if it's not increasing or its going down then follow Parijita's advice on this. Your avian vet should also keep a graph of your birds weight.

Bananas... hmmm not sure about these as neither of my birds like them.. Pajarita- should know though

[Pajarita]

Lovebirds love ALL leafy greens, some veggies (mine favorites are corn on the cob, diced cooked carrots, baby sweet peas and baked sweet potatoes), and fruits (mine favorites are apple, mango, papaya, blackberries and pomegranate but they also eat oranges, grapes, pears, all types of melons, bananas, etc).

Please don't start your training until the birds is fully weaned and grown. Not even dogs are trained before they are fully grown and they have been domesticated for over 30,000 years...

[shadi.maanna]

I mixed pears and plum for him. He liked the pears. He started to eat seeds (except sunflower) and is preferring them on eggfood, don't know how good that is. He eat seeds slowly not fast as I saw other birds do it. I never saw him drinking water so I'm sticking to eggfood.

He is getting bigger in size, the feathers under his beak and neck are growing. He is becoming energetic and is following us. He likes to sit on my shoulder and bite my ear. I tied ropes around the roof of the living room and put some swings in them. He just stands on the swing above us and starts singing. Yesterday he was trying to say his name When he's hungry, he just go to his cage or the table and eat.

I took your advises for training. I stopped everything and sticked to step-up which he is responding to very well. But when I tell him to come, he immediately flies to my hand. The poop method isn't working.