by Pajarita » Tue Jul 23, 2019 9:43 am
Well, my dear, the hard truth is that nobody can tell the gender of a lovebird by feeling its pelvis (and the breeder proved it by admitting the original sexing was wrong - now, if the original assessment was wrong, why would one believe that the second was 100% correct?). Breeders are not bird lovers, if they were, they would not breed them for the pet trade (where they inevitably suffer) and sell them to whoever has the money for it without even trying to make sure they end up in a good home - would they? Breeders want to sell the babies and, like any salesman, they would tell you what they think you want to hear. They are also not really concerned about giving them the care that would ensure a long life because, usually, they 'retire' their breeders after a few years (because they are already half-depleted) so they don't feed right, they feed to make them hormonal so they can get more clutches. Parrolets can NOT be free=fed seeds. Period. It's not that seeds are bad for them, they are not. It's that seeds to parrotlets is like fried food for us - you can eat a little but if all you eat is fried food every day, all day long, you are not going to stay healthy for very long.
As to the light schedule, the trick is NOT to turn on any artificial light on until the sun is completely out and there are rays already shining into the room and to turn them off when the sun is halfway down to the horizon because they need to have, at least, 1.5 hours of exposure to the different light that happens at dawn and dusk. Without exposure to this 'special' light, they cannot set their 'internal clock' - this is not my opinion, it's a scientific fact (research avian photoperiodism, avian endocrine system and avian reproductive system) so, although covering the cage with a black out material is the right thing to do, it needs to be done before the first light breaks in the sky (this time of the year, the latest you can do it is at 5:30 am) and cannot be covered until the night falls naturally and the bird is already asleep (without any artificial lights in the room, of course - this time of the year, I draw the blinds at 8:30 pm). The actual time the lights come on or off depends on the season with the summer having very long days and the winter having very short ones - which our pet birds need to follow the same as the birds out in the trees and the chickens do.
Please have your bird DNAd so you know the gender and make sure the new mate you get for him/her (please adopt, don't buy from a breeder) is of the opposite gender unless you have a male, in which case you could get another male although this would not be my choice. I actually strive to find mates for all my aviary species and, for the companion species, at the very least, another bird of the same species. But, for lovebirds, I would always find a mate. There is a very good reason why these birds are called lovebirds in English and inseparables in Spanish, French and Italian and it's because both nouns describe them to a T. They really and truly love each other very deeply and they are ALWAYS together! They eat, drink, fly together, they kiss and preen each other all the time and, when they sleep, they actually lean on each other so their bodies are always touching... Sheesh, people could learn a thing or two about love from these little birds! And there is NEVER any aggression between them - NEVER EVER! Males are incredibly solicitous of their females and very, very tender.
So, review the diet because free-feeding seeds will end up killing your birds (fatty liver disease, kidney malfunction, obesity, cardio-vascular problems) and, before that, they will have vitamin/mineral deficiencies (I feed gloop and produce for breakfast and, for dinner, one tablespoon of budgie seed for two birds but I also give them a good multivitamin/mineral supplement two or three times a week) and rethink the light schedule because it seems to me that they are following a human light schedule (light when you get up and off when you go to bed) instead of a bird one.