Met a family of lovebirds

[shiraartain]

There's a family we are acquainted with who ended up with a flock of lovebirds on their hands. The first time I heard of the situation I was so shocked everything I know about bird care slipped my mind, but the last time I went, I told them they need to give their birds 12 hours of sleep.

What happened is that they purchased a pair of lovebirds believing they were the same gender. Imagine their surprise then, when they ended up with chicks? These chicks hatched while the son, whose birds they are, was away at school and so the chicks are not hand tamed. The parents, since then, have had several more batches of chicks up until now. One recently hatched and there is also another egg.

The parents and their offspring are in separate cages (aside from the newly hatched chicks), as apparently the father attacked the younger birds once they reached a certain age.

I believe they have the best intentions, as the birds had many toys to play with and shelters, but those intentions are just misplaced.

The birds are kept in a room where they keep the lights on all day. I don't know if they keep them on throughout the night as well, and the thought didn't even occur to me until just now. We have gone to their house for dinner parties which last until 11-12 PM, and on those occasions the light has been on in that room continuously.

My acquaintance is with their daughter, who I rarely see and who has a fear of birds and so is not involved with the flock at all. I am hoping she relayed my advice about the 12 hours to her brother. It's not a situation where I can show up and criticize how they take care of their birds all at once.

I know they have been trying to sell the younger birds, but have only managed to sell 4 to date. They do not desire to have the birds breed, they had no clue how to stop it. What I cannot explain, however, is why they never googled how to make the birds stop. Perhaps it never occurred to them? The daughter was surprised when I explained the effect the long hours of light have on their hormones and why 12 hours should help.

That said, the birds were beautiful! I fell in love with a light-colored yellow one with a peach face, but we have Fajr and I can make no promises for the future of a bird of another species in our house. Also, the reason I decided against lovebirds and chose a conure was because their voices give me headaches .

[Pajarita]

It's not 12 hours of dark and 12 hours of light, they will breed with that. They need to expose them to a solar schedule (up with sunrise and to bed with sunset) and full twilight or they will continue breeding. They also need to separate the offspring and put all the males in one cage and the females in another or they will inbreed.

I am not surprised that they did no research, everybody thinks they know how to care for birds (cage, seeds and water) even if they don't.

[marie83]

Another thing they could do is replace the eggs with dummy eggs or boil and replace the original eggs when cooled. They can then sit on the eggs until they get bored. They definitely need a solar schedule and a really good diet if they allow the females to continue to lay though even if they do replace the eggs.

[shiraartain]

Oops, sorry! I know nothing about breeding since I've never raised birds with that intent. I will shoot her a message immediately correcting myself.

And my dad is like that as well Parjarita. We have many arguments over how I care for Fajr, but in the end since I'm the one actually doing everything, things go my way .

And Marie I will definitely suggest that!

Thank you both for correcting me! It would have been awful if what I had said only contributed to the situation.