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- 3/27/12
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- 565
The Nesting!
I need some help in helping her (sorry that this will be a bit long, but I wanted to give a full picture)
My 9.5 month old Fircher's lovie is starting to look for a nest site around the house. She is peeking her head behind the fridge, under the stove, behind the pillows, around the cushions, in the shelves,.... She is making holes in the fabrics, chipping away veneer cabinets.
And this is all in the last couple of weeks.
She hasn't started really making the nesting material, but mainly because we distract her away when she goes for any paper.
About her routine:
She has about 10 toys in her cage; plastic, wood, metal, foot, foraging. The only paper ones are little foraging boxes and pellets I wrap in construction paper. She has at least that many toys on the play stand. Today I started removing the tent from the cage during the day, although she would only sometimes take food in there to eat on a flat surface.
She eats the chop along with fresh green beans/snap peas/apples/broccoli, dried veggie mix in a foraging wheel, and mix of goldenfeast seeds and Roudybush and Harrison's pellets. She gets (cold) sweet potato/carrot and fingernail size of homemade birdie bread in the evening. She also has gotten spoiled with munching from multigrain bread slices (picking seeds/grains from it) at the dinner table, every evening we eat at home.
She is 45 grams, and has been for at least 4-5 months.
She takes baths in the sink every other day.
She will let me scratch her head occasionally, but I don't pet her any further. She gets 1.5-2 hours in the morning and 2-3 hours in the evening out of the cage. On nice days, which in TX we get those in the winter, we wheel her cage by an open door, or take her outside for a bit in a small cage. Her cage is covered at night for 12-12.5 hours.
She still enjoys flying around the house, and is not fully focused on nesting (I had a female lovebird before who when out of the cage and was in the nesting mode, would only look for paper and nothing else). She has started to be more aggressive when I have to remove her from somewhere. She is less patient to play tricks. I can distract still her when she goes to chew on something.
She hasn't been presenting as much, but has few locations in the house where she gets very excited. We turn away from the mating game or remove the object. She is not showing increased nesting in the cage - still plays around, is not building a nest, doesn't bite any more than before when a hand is in the cage with her (which happens rarely but sometimes it has to happen). She doesn't have the favorite person in the house.
So, before this escalates, I wanted to see how I can help her. I can increase her night time by another 30 min. I read that for birds from the equator region extreme darkness times (14+ hours) don't have much benefits. I can rearrange her cage more often or move it again. I can give her a bit less food.
I already covered several holes she found, remove the pillows whenever she goes behind them. But I can't nest-proof the entire house.
Is there anything else I can do to help her play around the house without trying to get into every single dark hole? The spring in TX is just about to start, so I'd like to make changes before the nesting gets worse.
I need some help in helping her (sorry that this will be a bit long, but I wanted to give a full picture)
My 9.5 month old Fircher's lovie is starting to look for a nest site around the house. She is peeking her head behind the fridge, under the stove, behind the pillows, around the cushions, in the shelves,.... She is making holes in the fabrics, chipping away veneer cabinets.
And this is all in the last couple of weeks.
She hasn't started really making the nesting material, but mainly because we distract her away when she goes for any paper.
About her routine:
She has about 10 toys in her cage; plastic, wood, metal, foot, foraging. The only paper ones are little foraging boxes and pellets I wrap in construction paper. She has at least that many toys on the play stand. Today I started removing the tent from the cage during the day, although she would only sometimes take food in there to eat on a flat surface.
She eats the chop along with fresh green beans/snap peas/apples/broccoli, dried veggie mix in a foraging wheel, and mix of goldenfeast seeds and Roudybush and Harrison's pellets. She gets (cold) sweet potato/carrot and fingernail size of homemade birdie bread in the evening. She also has gotten spoiled with munching from multigrain bread slices (picking seeds/grains from it) at the dinner table, every evening we eat at home.
She is 45 grams, and has been for at least 4-5 months.
She takes baths in the sink every other day.
She will let me scratch her head occasionally, but I don't pet her any further. She gets 1.5-2 hours in the morning and 2-3 hours in the evening out of the cage. On nice days, which in TX we get those in the winter, we wheel her cage by an open door, or take her outside for a bit in a small cage. Her cage is covered at night for 12-12.5 hours.
She still enjoys flying around the house, and is not fully focused on nesting (I had a female lovebird before who when out of the cage and was in the nesting mode, would only look for paper and nothing else). She has started to be more aggressive when I have to remove her from somewhere. She is less patient to play tricks. I can distract still her when she goes to chew on something.
She hasn't been presenting as much, but has few locations in the house where she gets very excited. We turn away from the mating game or remove the object. She is not showing increased nesting in the cage - still plays around, is not building a nest, doesn't bite any more than before when a hand is in the cage with her (which happens rarely but sometimes it has to happen). She doesn't have the favorite person in the house.
So, before this escalates, I wanted to see how I can help her. I can increase her night time by another 30 min. I read that for birds from the equator region extreme darkness times (14+ hours) don't have much benefits. I can rearrange her cage more often or move it again. I can give her a bit less food.
I already covered several holes she found, remove the pillows whenever she goes behind them. But I can't nest-proof the entire house.
Is there anything else I can do to help her play around the house without trying to get into every single dark hole? The spring in TX is just about to start, so I'd like to make changes before the nesting gets worse.