It followed me home; can I keep it?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I was acquired by what I think is an African Lovebird, under most unusual circumstances. I was walking my dog, and heard a loud bird-noise. I stopped and looked up, and this brilliant flash of yellow came swooping out of the oak tree near the street…and landed on my shoulder!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :confused: :confused: :cool:

Anyway, I’ve looked all over the neighborhood, checking with neighbors–nobody’s missing a bird. So I’ll put up posters, but if no one claims Sunshine, can I keep him/her? :smiley: And what do I need to know about taking care of a lovebird?

Sunshine in her cheap Wal*Mart cage.

Sunshine “helping” me assemble her cage.

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Oh wow! Sunshine looks like a pale version of my lovebird! Definitely keep looking for his/her owners - they must be freaking out. I’ve come across mention of online resources for lost pets before but I’m afraid I don’t remember anything helpful. Hopefully someone else will come along with more information.

Congratulations if you get to keep him/her! Lovebirds are real characters. I’d recommend taking Sunshine to an avian vet (there’s a specific certification* vets who treat birds can get, and those that do tend to be more knowledgeable about birds, but any vet that specializes in birds will do) to get her health checked out, and actually, contacting local vets is another way you could look for his/her (I’m just going to go with ‘she’) owners.

If you do end up keeping her:

You don’t mention if you have any other pet birds, though I get the feeling you don’t, but if you do, you’ll want to keep Sunshine in quarantine for 30 days or so - separate room, and wash hands/change clothes after interacting with her - to be sure she doesn’t infect your birds with something. (Birds are very good at hiding illness, and there are some that don’t cause symptoms from the get go.)

You can get birdseed specifically for lovebirds at Petco/Petsmart, though it’s healthier for birds to eat mostly pellets, I’ve read, and you can get some at the store, but you might want to do a bit of research about brands, as some are quite superior to others. Personally, I use/have used Roudybush (I’ve never found it in chain stores), Harrison’s (another one not in chain stores) and Zupreem (this one can be found in Petco/Petsmart). I think I’m spelling those correctly.

Her cage is too small at present, though getting a lot of time out of the cage daily can make up for it to a certain extent. She’ll need toys- they’re smart and easily bored - and you might get her toys or a cuttle bone specifically to chew on. Other than that, just keep her away from cats/dogs (there’s a bacteria in dog, cat, and, I’ve heard, human saliva that is deadly to birds**, so it’s probably not a good idea to let other pets interact with her or to share food with her (some people food is ok. Nothing too salty, and there are some foods poisonous to birds**.

Just in general, I find - and have had confirmed through other people - that lovebirds love playing with water. With mine, just about everything goes in the water dish at some point. And like all pet birds, really, they can be really messy - mine throws food she doesn’t want to eat on the floor outside her cage. Also, females are known for being very territorial about their cages, and some will attack anyone who invades, regardless of how fond of them they are***. So if yours is too, be careful with changing food and water dishes.

Finally, this isn’t required, just preferred - if you can’t spend a lot of time with her, please consider getting her a companion. Birds are very social and can suffer quite a bit - to the point of self-mutilation**** sometimes - from loneliness and boredom.

That should cover most of it. Oh - careful with nonstick pans. The fumes can be fatal - birds have sensitive respiratory systems. And they can cause quite a lot of feather mess and look really scruffy when molting. By the way, it looks like she’s a peach-faced lovebird*****.

Good luck!

*http://www.abvp.com/categories_avian.htm
**http://www.exoticpetvet.net/avian/topten.html
***guide
****Feather-plucking - Wikipedia
*****Rosy-faced lovebird - Wikipedia
Sorry about all the asterisks.

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Edit – everything Supergoose said is solid. Here’s more blather from me!

Do make an effort to find his/her previous home – bird lovers get an awful feeling when their little loved ones fly off. Plus you can feel totally confident you did the right thing if you wind up keeping Sunshine.

We have 5 small parrots, none of them lovebirds. Lovies can be kept solo if they get plenty of out-of-cage time with their human flockmates.

I will keep this short and simple: I’ve found that the more investment in learning I put into every animal I’ve cared for, the more rewarding teh relationship. I strongly urge you to start reading about lovebirds!

Two of the better bird chat sites I’ve seen (despite having horribly archaic chat board software, I should warn) are www.upatsix.com and www.birdsnways.com. Each has a dedicated lovebird subsection if you dig around.

Looking at her cage, yes, that’s small, what I’d call a “sleeping cage” for a bird who spends most of his/her time outside it. Bigger cage and toys, toys, toys! Lovies like a small “happy hut” to sleep in too (sort of a plushie tent-looking thing).

Current thinking is to feed a mix of seeds and pellets, supplemented by fresh foods. We cook (and allow to cool…nothing hotter than slightly-above-room-temp, and beware uneven microwave heat) plain pasta, frozen peas and corn, broccoli florets, and steamed rice, among other stuff. No salt or caffeine please. No grit for parrots. No “cage protector” for mites unless diagnosed with mites by a vet. No scented candles (essential oils are bad).

Lovies like to snuggle – if Sunshine is already on your finger you may see a fast adjustment period. You can best make friends by giving sidelong, slightly indirect glances (staring straight on with both eyes is a predator thing)and by simply being in view while doing relaxed, non-threatening things like reading, watching TV, posting to the Dope.

Be careful about the snuggling/tunnelling game – a lot of Lovies perish from having things set down on them, etc. Know where your bird is at all times.

Bird-safe premises can be a challenge. We have a “mostly” bird-safe room. I had to remove bookshelves after several crawling-into-gap-with-wall-and-getting-stuck incidents…some quite scary. Parrots will hide in holes; it’s a getting-ready-to-mate behavior.

If you keep Sunshine, and are willing to put in time and to learn, you’re in for a new kind of fun. If you find Sunshine’s original home, well, there are a lot of Sunshines in the world needing rescue – you can save one (or more) of them almost as easily.

Sunshine is a cutie!

Sailboat

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That is AWESOME!

I wish random stuff like that happened to me. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Please try to find the owner. My heart would break forever if I lost Onan.

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Oh, I will definitely try to find the owner. The cage was the best I could do, at 8pm and not knowing if I’d be keeping him.

Last night she was all over both of us, loving and kissing, and really would NOT leave me alone. This morning, it’s a completelly different bird. She won’t come out of the cage and is biting. Hard. Help?

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[after research] Well, duh. She’s being territorial. Fine. I left the cage door open, and she climbed out for a while, then back in. I’ll let her be for a while. She’s got parakeet seed, some pasta and some corn to choose from for food, and I have some broccoli for later.

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Maybe you look less like Sunshine’s original human companion in the cold like of morning? Also, pay attention to what colors you’re wearing…some birds react badly to certain changes in appearance. Put the shirt you wore yesterday back on and see if that helps.

Overall, however…

Slow and steady wins the birdie heart. Parrots have a natural flocking instinct – they want, nay, need to have social interaction with peers – and they’re capable of recognizing us as their intellectual equals. Sunshine wants a flock and will accept you if you win her trust and establish your qualifications as bird-like.

But it’s a trust-winning exercise, first and foremost. Don’t force her out of the cage, and don’t force your hand in; to add to the difficulty, lovies and females in general (and just for the record, it’s not yet clear that Sunshine is a female, but I’ll use “she” for convenience) are somewhat more protective of their cages than other parrots and males.

Instead, within her sight, do quiet, relaxed activities, including eating and a lot of things that do not involve looking directly at her. Let her observe you being non-predatory, non-threatening. This will take time – maybe lots of it, I once spent about 5 months winning the trust of a rescued cockatiel, and we never did win the love of 2 of our female budgies – but it’s really the only way; you can’t force it. Sunshine is VERY early in this process, but the loving last night shows promise. Talk quietly in the background, be present in her life, be in view. It helps to read or watch TV or whatnot to keep yourself from getting bored or succumbing to the urge to rush things, and let her set the pace. Approach slowly but not like you’re stalking prey; look at her sideway out of one eye, then look away as if shy – a lot of folks have success playing sight games, moving into and out of the bird’s vision, looking at and away, and otherwise flirting like a strange bird introducing itself to the flock.

Meanwhile you can be reading about lovebirds from the library and the Internet. :slight_smile:

Lovies sure can nip with those proportionally laerge beaks! If you need to change food and water without getting bitten, you can use one hand holding a colorful piece of cloth or toy as a distraction on one side of the cage while the other darts in to change the dishes.

A little incidental nipping is part and parcel of parront-hood. Do not react to it; parrots love drama (look up “the drama reward” on parrot info sites) and will interpret even being yelled at as attention and reward. NEVER blow, tap, flick, or hit, of course. The less you react to a nip the better.

Birds don’t understand punishment or discipline. Eventually (once you’re accepted as a flock member) you can use “laddering” to curb nipping, but you can’t use it yet. Laddering consists of stepping the bird up from one hand to the other (hence like a ladder) just rapidly enough that the bird has to pay attention to footwork and forget the biting; it operates off the principles “Interrupt, Reinforce, Praise, Distract.” Interrupt the bird’s conecentration on biting, best by introducing a colorful toy into view with the othe rhand, or just by bringing the other hand over and stepping her up; reinforce an ingrained habit of obedience (birds are not very obedient, but stepping up when a finger is placed at their belly is a very natural reaction and constantly used, so the bird is very likely to do it, making it a good choice for the reinforcement phase), praise the bird after she’s done just enough “rungs” on the ladder that she’s stepping up consistently without biting or fussing; immediately distract with a new toy, activity, or perch…basically something interesting.

The goal of laddering is to replace the bird’s frustration with the “hey I just did the right thing and got praised for it” feeling and the biting activity with “ooh shiny new thing.” The distraction is a reward, but it does not follow biting, but instead follows a proper behavior you want to encourage (stepping up).

The universal advice for people with a brand-new parrot which has not accepted them – take it slow for now! Patience is your weapon to defang that beak.

Best of luck to you; keep us updated.

Sailboat

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Thanks, Sailboat! You’re all awesome.

I’m being lazy this morning, but I will get out and put those posters out!

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Molly is very interested. :rolleyes:

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just popping in to add to the don’ts. good on you, trouble. much karma to you for stepping up for the feathered one.

my two cents. **goose ** mentioned pan fumes upthread? quite right.

also, beware anything with a lot of scent, including your favorite perfume, cleaning products, and candles - big, big, HUGE no-no on scented candles.

they can be fatally toxic to the bird. that was one of the first things the divemaster warned me about when we got together: no scented candles (he has a giant macaw)! happiness for me is a good book, a tub full of hot water and candles, candles, candles, so i had to make some adjustments.

if you must burn, for the interim put them away and get yourself emergency candles that don’t have a smell.

also, cats and birds do not mix.

even a minor cat nip can be fatal. he lost his previous macaw to my Turk when he was a kitten, and he just barely nipped her. that was the end of the first macaw. :frowning: needless to say, we make very very sure his kitties are nowhere around when we bring trigger to the couch for a little quality time.

good luck and please keep us posted on the feathered one. :slight_smile:

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Well, I put up posters, and checked the “lost pet” adds. No go. So today I bought her a bigger cage. There weren’t any long and low cages, so I did the best I could. She isn’t sure she likes it yet. I couldn’t get her to go into it for a long time this evening.

She does like riding around on my head. :stuck_out_tongue:

She doesn’t like fingers. The first two days she was totally cool with stepping up on fingers or hands, or being petted, and then she decided hands were evil and will bite, bite, bite. Help? How’n hell do I get her back in the cage if she won’t go on her own, and I can’t use a hand to move her up? Oh, and using a dowel doesn’t work any better. :rolleyes:

What gets bird-poop out of clothes? That’s a burning question…

She likes Himself just fine. She’ll sit on my head for a while, then fly off and sit on his, then come back to me.

She’s worked herself into the routine okay, I guess. In the morning, I let the cats in and love them and snuggle them for a while, then put them out on the patio. After I shower, dress, and dry my hair, I get the bird out (with a towel around my shoulders), and she rides around on my head while I do makeup, gather up whatever I’m carrying to work with me, then I put her back in the cage and turn on a radio and leave.

In the evening, I change clothes, let the dog out in the yard, let the cats onto the patio to eat. I walk the dog, put her out in the yard, then let the bird out. She rides around on my head for a while, then I put her away about an hour before bed, then let the cats in for snuggles.

The cats are never in while the bird is out, and the cats are never left unsupervised in the house with the bird. The dog pays little to no attention to the bird, including when it landed on me during our walk. A brief “what’s that?” look, then back to her walk. She’s not really a factor, though, as she’s an outdoor dog.

Any additional advice, folks? :cool:

More pics here.

Oh, and Scubaqueen, scented candles/perfumes, etc. are toxic to me too. :stuck_out_tongue:

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She’s so pretty! She goes well with your hair color. :smiley:

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:smiley: My MIL thinks my haircolor is why the bird likes me so much!

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I could be misreading the situation (lovebirds tend to be nippy in general), but the combination of riding on your heads and biting sounds to me like an alpha bird problem. With birds, being higher up physically is an indication of being higher up on the social ladder (which gives her the right to boss around and bite flock members lower in the social structure). I’ve never dealt with this or read a lot on the subject, but I do know you need to make it clear that you’re the top bird. If she can’t ride on your head without getting nippy, then she isn’t allowed to. Same with shoulders. Sailboat’s very good biting advice above would work here.

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She* flies off the cage to heads or shoulders, and won’t be dislodged easily. So what do I do? I don’t want to give in to the “drama reward” I’ve read about by scolding or whatever. Anything I place near her at all provokes a screeching/biting reflex, so that doesn’t really work well for distraction. I can’t do the laddering thing, because well, that’s the problem. I never had any of this problem with my cockatiel. :frowning: She was a total sweetheart.

*Still using *she * “just because” I don’t know which.

OH! Her cage is up high because of the cats. Should I move it down?