strange baby lovebird behavior

[Archer96]

Hello,I think I might have a problem with my little guy (Steel) He has this habbit of making complaining noises whenever I put my hands near him . He also does this when I offer him food, it can get quite loud. I did hand feed him and he's almost weaned, so he is friendly but when I try to rub him he complains at me but at the same time he wants more, He never used to act like that he was quiet and let me rub him! Same for when I hand feed him, he doesn't want the food but he does, whats with that? And I don't force feed him I offer it, he is now 8 weeks old. Thx for your answers.

[liz]

He seems to have some kind of fear. My opinion: back up and treat him as a bird you just brought home. Respect his space and don't reach in to get him. Open the door and let him come to you. Change things around so that he can perch at your face level. Don't touch him from above. Bring your hand in from the side then above to scratch his is head. Keep your hands palms down when possible. Give him more "you can look at me" time by being near so he can watch you in your normal day.
Like I said, my opinion.

[Wolf]

I would really like to have more information as well as more detail when trying to answer questions concerning bird's behaviors. Birds are very complex creatures as well as being highly social and extremely intelligent. Many of their actions and reactions only begin to make sense when you know enough about their daily schedules, their age and relationship with their human, to mention a few things.
I can't be positive but it sounds like this birds does not yet trust you, which could be due to your not having had him for very long or because you simply have not spent enough time in winning his trust, or even that you are not doing things right to gain the birds trust and I can't tell which is most likely as there is simply not enough to go on.
At only 8 wks. old your bird is still just a baby and it is dependent on you for everything and it is quite aware of this, even in ways that I am sure that you are not yet aware of, but he is. I am going to assume that the change in the birds behavior began within a couple of days after you brought him home, probably from the breeders.
First of all, if I am right so far, then the new environment as well as being all alone is very frightening to a bird and he also has to deal with his new human, who while meaning well is probably pushing too fast for the baby bird to be comfortable with. So the first thing is to slow down a bit and allow your new friend a chance to relax and begin to adjust to his new home and living conditions. This bird is trying to communicate with you and to tell you what it needs as well as what you are not doing right. I suspect that you are new to birds and that this is your first one. I think that this link will prove helpful to you as although it is referring to budgies specifically most of the body language will still work for your bird as many things are very similar or the same about their behaviors regardless of the species of parrot. http://littlefeatheredbuddies.com/info/ ... guage.html
I think that your bird is trying to tell you that it is hungry and that is because it is young enough that it is having a hard time with the dry, hard food that it is probably getting, seeds, I suspect. At this young age your friend has probably not been properly weaned and still needs some weaning formula at least twice a day. As it can't eat enough of the other food to sustain itself just yet. You could try giving this bird some whole wheat bread soaked in some unsweetened apple juice or you could get some vegetarian baby food and some old fashioned oatmeal and cook the oats, let them cool to room temperature and then mix some of the baby food with it and offer your bird some of that. If this helps go and get some weaning formula from the pet store or from the breeder. This is a very common occurrence and has nothing to do with you doing anything wrong.
Because your new bird is a baby and needs you to teach it how to live in a human world it wants to trust you but it is scared and everything is new to it so don't reach into its cage except as needed to change food and water, or to clean it. Give your bird a chance to get used to you and its surroundings. I am not positive about lovebirds, as I have parrotlets, but many of them are not the biggest fans of a lot of petting which should be limited to only their heads and beaks and then only when they request it. For now you need to quit trying to touch him as you are causing him too much stress.
This is about all that I can tell from what you said and combining that with my own experience, but feel free to correct me in the areas that I was guessing about. Pleas take the time to inform us about the birds daily routine from the time it gets up until it goes to bed, what you are feeding it as well as how often, what you are doing to try to interact with your new friend, where the birds cage is placed and so on. The more that you can tell us the better we can help you not only to solve issues but to help you to prevent some issues from happening. We can help you with what the bird should be eating and how to get them to eat the right foods, we can help you with hand taming your bird We can help you with just about anything that you need to know to help you have a long and great relationship with your new friend, but we need to know as much as possible about him to be accurate in our suggestions on how you can best help him.

[Pajarita]

Has he been gaining weight steadily? Are you still handfeeding him? If so, what percentage of his daily weight? Is he getting a couple of choice of warm soft food served fresh daily? Is he pooping normally both in quantity and 'quality'? Because it sounds to me as if he has either sour crop or has some eating problem (formula too cold? too thin? not enough?) -the peeping for food but then not eating it greedily indicates a problem.

[Archer96]

I would really like to have more information as well as more detail when trying to answer questions concerning bird's behaviors. Birds are very complex creatures as well as being highly social and extremely intelligent. Many of their actions and reactions only begin to make sense when you know enough about their daily schedules, their age and relationship with their human, to mention a few things.
I can't be positive but it sounds like this birds does not yet trust you, which could be due to your not having had him for very long or because you simply have not spent enough time in winning his trust, or even that you are not doing things right to gain the birds trust and I can't tell which is most likely as there is simply not enough to go on.
At only 8 wks. old your bird is still just a baby and it is dependent on you for everything and it is quite aware of this, even in ways that I am sure that you are not yet aware of, but he is. I am going to assume that the change in the birds behavior began within a couple of days after you brought him home, probably from the breeders.
First of all, if I am right so far, then the new environment as well as being all alone is very frightening to a bird and he also has to deal with his new human, who while meaning well is probably pushing too fast for the baby bird to be comfortable with. So the first thing is to slow down a bit and allow your new friend a chance to relax and begin to adjust to his new home and living conditions. This bird is trying to communicate with you and to tell you what it needs as well as what you are not doing right. I suspect that you are new to birds and that this is your first one. I think that this link will prove helpful to you as although it is referring to budgies specifically most of the body language will still work for your bird as many things are very similar or the same about their behaviors regardless of the species of parrot. http://littlefeatheredbuddies.com/info/ ... guage.html
I think that your bird is trying to tell you that it is hungry and that is because it is young enough that it is having a hard time with the dry, hard food that it is probably getting, seeds, I suspect. At this young age your friend has probably not been properly weaned and still needs some weaning formula at least twice a day. As it can't eat enough of the other food to sustain itself just yet. You could try giving this bird some whole wheat bread soaked in some unsweetened apple juice or you could get some vegetarian baby food and some old fashioned oatmeal and cook the oats, let them cool to room temperature and then mix some of the baby food with it and offer your bird some of that. If this helps go and get some weaning formula from the pet store or from the breeder. This is a very common occurrence and has nothing to do with you doing anything wrong.
Because your new bird is a baby and needs you to teach it how to live in a human world it wants to trust you but it is scared and everything is new to it so don't reach into its cage except as needed to change food and water, or to clean it. Give your bird a chance to get used to you and its surroundings. I am not positive about lovebirds, as I have parrotlets, but many of them are not the biggest fans of a lot of petting which should be limited to only their heads and beaks and then only when they request it. For now you need to quit trying to touch him as you are causing him too much stress.
This is about all that I can tell from what you said and combining that with my own experience, but feel free to correct me in the areas that I was guessing about. Pleas take the time to inform us about the birds daily routine from the time it gets up until it goes to bed, what you are feeding it as well as how often, what you are doing to try to interact with your new friend, where the birds cage is placed and so on. The more that you can tell us the better we can help you not only to solve issues but to help you to prevent some issues from happening. We can help you with what the bird should be eating and how to get them to eat the right foods, we can help you with hand taming your bird We can help you with just about anything that you need to know to help you have a long and great relationship with your new friend, but we need to know as much as possible about him to be accurate in our suggestions on how you can best help him.

Thanks for your answers, first, I have had him for 2 and a half weeks and have owned other birds before, he seems to be right at home as he plays with his toys, preens and always wants to come out of his cage. He is eating his seeds quite well and seems to like them over formula. His poops are normal. So I will try to explain a bit more on him, I bought him from a well know breeder (when he was 6 weeks old) who told me that if I hand fed him he would bond to me better, so I agreed. She gave me the instructions on how and when to feed him and it went good, he ate the food like a little pig and I knew when he wanted it because he would bite at me (gentle). Now I feed him twice a day ( at 10:00 to 9:00, I try to keep the temp 106 f) and he takes 1 cc but fly's away after, I don't know if I should clip his wings? The breeder had his wings clipped when I bought him. There was a time when I first had him were he refused the formula and I thought he was weaned but I kept trying and then he started to want it again, 4 feedings a day 5 cc. I have given him fruits and vegies and cherios, he only liked the cherios. I take him out 3 to 4 times a day and he likes to sit on my head, fly around and bug my budgie. His cage is in my room with my budgie ( in a different cage) I don't know if I said everything but If I didn't answer a question let me know. thx

[Archer96]

And I haven't been weighing him but he looks healthy to me.

[Wolf]

Thanks for your answer and I am glad to know that you have more experience with birds than I was giving credit for. That was not intended to dismiss the experience that you may have, that is just me being cautious and trying to be thorough with my answers at the same time. One of the things that I have learned with birds and birds humans is to take nothing for granted and it is usually better to answer the first few questions as if to a completely new person than to assume that they are experienced and that is why I try to be so thorough.
It may be true that hand feeding your new bird will help with his bonding with you while he is still a baby, as that would be normal for the parent/ child dependency type of bond that they form while they are young, but that may not help when the bird begins to mature and goes through puberty and it comes time for him to mate bond.
As I said I have parrotlets and not lovebirds, I am told that they are very similar in most ways with the major difference being that the parrotlet is more aggressive. I know that it does not take much to get my parrotlets to chittering either excitedly or angrily. Either way the parrotlet think that it is a great time to bite it profusely if it is near them. They even do that with each other, at least they aren't biting each other that hard. I have seen them actually fight when the male first came here and it is totally different than what they do now.
I can't say for sure, but in many ways it is beginning to sound to me as if everything is fine for now and that this difference in how he is acting is mainly due to him getting used to his new environment and that the honeymoon period may be over.
It is also possible that if he is eating a lot of seeds that he may be getting too much protein which is known to increase aggressive behaviors and the other possibility is that he is not sleeping right. My birds all get up and go to sleep with the sun just as if they were in the wild.

[Pajarita]

Please don’t feed your birds cheerios. They are not good for them in the long term because, as they were formulated for human and not avian nutrition, they are super high in iron (up to 45%!) . Birds don’t need anywhere near as much iron as people and, when they ingest too much, it ends up been stored in the liver. When the liver is ‘full’, it becomes larger in order to accommodate more storage (this disease is called hemochromatosis or iron storage disease). As the liver keeps on getting bigger and bigger, its function diminishes until the bird goes into hepatic failure and dies. Of course, before that, the bird shows symptoms but because the symptoms and the blood results are the same as for birds that suffer from fatty liver, this disease is usually misdiagnosed as such – unfortunately, the treatment is not the same and that’s why some birds do not respond well to fatty liver disease treatment and end up dead. The only way to diagnose it is through a liver biopsy and no avian vet is going to do this kind of surgery on a sick and weakened bird so it’s kind of a catch 22 for them…
Now, at 8.5 weeks of age, he is still a baby and, as such, he needs soft foods served fresh twice a day. Soft foods are just that, foods that are soft and easy to eat. He is at a stage that one could compare to a 2 year old toddler. He can eat on his own but he needs special food and momma would still spoon feed him to make sure he is eating enough. I had lovebirds babies twice in my birdroom (eggcidents as I don’t breed) and, in both cases, the babies did not leave the nest until they were 3 months old and that means their parents were still feeding them at 12 weeks of age

[Wolf]

Sorry, I meant to bring up the cheerios as well, but messed up on that.

[Archer96]

Thank you for the info, I'm shocked about the cheerio thing because so many other people have said its good for them, is there anything else like them he can eat instead? And should I clip his wings? He is all over the place, I have read that you shouldn't before their weaned. However, the breeder had his wings clipped before.