HOW TO CARE OF THE YOUNG LOVEBIRD

BANDING
There are many advantages to banding. Yet I hesitate to recommend it for your lovebirds. Installing the bands can cause injuries, although that can be prevented if you are coached by an experienced fancier. Wearing the bands can cause even bigger problems.

Many parent lovebirds peck at the rings of their offspring. The shiny rings are seen as foreign objects, and the parent lovebirds will try to grasp and remove them at all costs. As a result, the legs of the young are wounded or even broken. Furthermore, constant pecking at rings by both parents and the young themselves cause jagged edges on the rings. These also can promote injuries, directly or when lovebirds get hung up on branches and other objects. I have seen many a broken leg as a result.

A preventive measure to take is to blacken the bands with a felt-tip pen, so that they're less shiny. Also, rub some droppings on them, to give them a familiar scent. Ordinarily, this will make the rings less objectionable and the lovebirds may leave them alone.

To differentiate between young lovebirds by sex, they must be banded, of course. Many people, especially those who are inexperienced, consider this a nerve-racking job. If you proceed calmly, however, it isn't so bad. You can obtain bands through your lovebird club or from some pet stores. Bands are engraved with the current year and a serial number that enables you to identify the young lovebird's parents. If you keep accurate records, you will be able to determine, for example, that your lovebirds 6, 7, 8 and 9 came from a pair with the designations 2 and 3, respectively.

To fit leg bands, hold the lovebird loosely in your right hand in a way that allows you to grasp one of the legs easily between your thumb and index finger. With your left hand, dab some petroleum jelly (Vaseline) on the toes. " Glue" the two front toes together with the jelly and lay them forward. Lay the two back toes back, and "glue" them to the leg. Everything is now arranged in a straight line, permitting you to push the legband into place easily.

If you want to band older lovebirds, use a band that can be clamped shut with special bird-band pliers. Be gentle, however; a lovebird's leg is very fragile and can easily be broken or injured. Special clamp-on colored bands are particularly useful for lovebirds whose hatching dates are unknown. These colored bands are made of light metal, while the above-mentioned identification bands are usually of copper or aluminum and are spiral-shaped. Colored bands, however, are useful only when there are no other characteristic by which lovebirds can be identified. If, for example, you own only a single unbanded pair of lutino peach-faced lovebirds, it isn't necessary to band them. The young from this couple would receive the normal, closed leg bands.

Colored bands are often handy to distinguish several lovebirds of the same species or variety kept in the same aviary or breeding cage; pair A gets a green band, B gets yellow, C red, etc.

If during an extra busy breeding season you neglect to band the young bird, you can do so later provided you know who the parents are. You can use the normal leg bands, which is more trouble, but generally workable. If you don't know who the parents are (this can happen in large group aviaries containing several pairs of lovebirds of the same species and color), it doesn't pay to band with a closed band. If at all possible, the best procedure remains to band lovebirds when they are seven or eight days old. The band size for all lovebirds is 4.5mm.

After banding the lovebirds, clean their legs and toes thoroughly with a bit of cotton. When you place the young lovebirds backs in the nest, watch the parent lovebirds closely to see if they try to remove the rings from their chicks' feet. If one week after the ringing procedure nothing has happened, you can safely assume that the parents have not been bothered by the bands.

FEATHER PICKING
Nestlings will start to feather out at the end of the third week. At that point, watch out for females lovebird that peck feathers from the young. This may be all right if not overdone, and it generally stops when the young leave the nest. You can't wait long in serious cases, and you will have to transfer the young to foster parents. They will accept "adoptees" up to 3 weeks old. If you don't have foster parents available, discourage the pecking by rubbing the young lovebirds with Bitter Apple or peppermint oil. For somewhat older lovebirds, you can try removing the top of the nest box (which is of course only practical if the lovebirds are being raised in an aviary, as nest boxes on cages and such are usually hung on the outside, and lovebirds could escape).


FLEDGING
Young lovebirds leave the nest at 6 weeks of age. By then the female has often started a second brood, but the male continues to feed the young until they are completely independent.

Well before the beginning of the breeding season, supply the special feed that parents like to offer their young, such as sprouted and soaked seed, spray millet, half-ripe grass seeds, small insects, commercial supplements, and egg feed. When lovebirds leave the nest, the male will teach the young to eat regular feed, but supply the special feed until the young are completely independent, which takes about 2 weeks more.

Once the young are independent, provide a separate run or roomy cage if possible, and furnish the normal seed mix, grit, water, and some of the special feed on which they were raised. They will go through their first molt at 3 to 4 months of age, a process that takes about 2 months. During that time, they are quite sensitive to cold and moisture, so the best place to keep them is in an indoor run.