Scared African Love Birds

[Satish]

Hi,

I have purchased a couple of african love birds two months back. The are extremely close to each other and chirp a lot...

However, they are very scared. Everytime, I or my wife even whistle or go near the cage, they go to the top most part of the cage.

I have even offered them fruits from my hand but they do not come near.

How do I engage with them? They are very active and love to swing....

Please advise.

P.S. I read in one of your posts that I should bring them out of the cage and pamper them....is it so?

[liz]

Welcome to the forum.

They are afraid of the preditor with big hands that they think want to eat them.

Put a perch at eye level so they see your face and not notice your hands. To them higher is safer.

Parrot proof a room and open their door. It might take a while but they will go to the top for their fist step.

Put them in your most active room and ignore them. Let them watch you and hear your voice without trying to do anything with them. Some have even read books to theirs just to make vocal contact.

Let them make the first contact and they will. It may take a while but they will adjust to their new surroundings and the big human with them.

[Wolf]

Welcome to the forum.

I don't have love birds, but I do have a smaller, slightly more aggressive species of parrot that is very similar, Parrotlets, They are sort of like the New World version of love birds. I am going to give you a link to another topic in which I wrote how I would approach this same type of situation, although it was in answer to the same type of question concerning a different species of parrot, it works for all types of parrots. It will probably take a bit longer for it to work in your situation as you have a pair of birds instead of a single bird. Here is the link, hope it helps. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=15840

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum! You have already gotten very good advice from Liz and Wolf and the only thing I have to add is a question: have these birds been DNA'd? Because, with lovebirds, you can put two males together or you can have a male and a female but you cannot have two females as, eventually, they will fight and one will hurt the other or even kill her.