Lovebird.

[Fiona&Tweety]

Hi all, I have recently adopted a baby hand raised, lutino peach faced lovebird called Tweety. I have been feeding it baby bird food through a syringe and spending alot of time bonding with it in the 2 weeks that we have been together. My husband Garry is developing a bond with Tweety also.
Tweety is comfortable being handled. I was worried it was becoming aggressive, as it started biting fingers, toes, ears ect yet was not acting afraid. I have found a solution. Tweety was trying to interact and play with us. I found by dangling a bead on a cord near it, the bird started biting and playing with the bead instead of my body. If it tries to bite me now, I just say no in a firm voice and it stops biting.
Tweety mainly seems to be playful like this in the mornings. At night it is very smoochy wanting cuddles, pats and kisses.
We are grey nomads travelling around Australia, living in a caravan. My biggest concern is that Tweety will escape out of the van while its flying around inside. I have clipped one wing but it still can fly. I may have done it wrong.
Cheer and tweet for now.
Fiona and Tweety.

[GlassOnion]

Please clip the other wing evenly. What you did is wrong and very dangerous because he has no balance. He can break their keel bone on a heavy land.

Also, offer lots of veggies, fruits, and grains when it's weaning! An all seed diet is very unsuitable as lovebirds barely eat seeds in the wild. That will cause serious liver problems down the road.
I suggest a pelleted diet with lots of grains, fruits, veggies.

Cheers!

[Fiona&Tweety]

Thankyou Glassonion for the advice. I will do as you have recomended. I am new to the world of parrots and am loving it but learning as I go. There is lots of contradictory info on the net, that makes it confusing.
Thanks for your wisdom.
Fiona

[Shelby]

It might actually be safer in the long run to flight train Tweety so he will fly to you when you call him. Even clipped birds can still glide, so clipping is no guarantee that he won't escape. If he can fly, he will have a better chance of coming back to you if he ever gets loose.

[Fiona&Tweety]

Hi Shelby,
Thanks for your response. Good idea. I do plan to flight train Tweety. Tweety is able to fly quite well. I have evened up the wings as recommended by GlassOnion. I'm spending alot of
time bonding at this stage and will move on to training once we have been together a bit longer.
Tweety has only been part of our family for 2 weeks.
He is now 8 weeks old.
Cheers,
Fiona