Posted by banty_babe on March 18, 2003 at 01:22:16:
Hi everyone,
I'm a first time lovebird breeder and we're having some strange problems with our mother and her 2 babies.
This female (Oddbodd) has always been very vicious and has been known to kill birds 10 times her size...seriously.
But she fell in love with our male lovebird and they had eggs and hatched them together.
When the babies were pink and ugly Oddbodd was such a caring mother and would never do anything to hurt her babies. But once they almost had all their feathers she started to pull out the feathers on their backs. This went on for about 2 weeks and she seems to have stopped but now she's just really rough with them. Any sudden movement they make and she runs over to them and beats them on the back of the head.
They're just about 2 months old now and are fully feathered. They started flying last week. Oddbodd has laid 2 eggs since then but isn't interested in them.
We've taken the babies out of their cage (the family live together in this cage) and put them in their own on the other side of the room. But they hate it and spent their whole time trying to get out. Their father is now with them in this cage amd the mother is in the old one.
The babies are still being fed by their dad(about twice a day) butI want to know how old they have to be until they can go without being fed by parents.
Also, will the mother be ok on her own? Is their anything we can try or you might be able to suggest.
Thankyou,
banty_babe
