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new to love birds need help and advice please

mikejc01

Moving in
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10/28/18
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Real Name
Mike
Hi Guys

many thanks for letting me join this facebook page.

I have always been a dog lover, never had a bird until this
beautiful very young lovebird landed on our window sill
on 5th July.

I would guess she was no more than 3-4 months old,
and we live on 14th floor in our building in Spain

took ages to get her tame , now she has started to lay eggs

on 4th and 5th of this month, she laid 2 eggs , I had left on 3rd to
go to see my family , so my partner was there.

it was like ww 3 with them, until I got home 6 days later.

she did not take any notice of the first 2 eggs, so he took them away after a few days , then 6 days ago
she laid another , then 2 more in 4 days now has 3 in total, and sitting on them all the time.
and still looking for paper etc, to bring into her cage

how do I stop her from looking to nest all the time . her eggs will not have
any chicks in them ,

how long do I let her lay on the eggs , so many mixed reports out there

also what is best diet , at moment she has food I got in pet shop,
that has lots of seeds etc

so have loads to learn , I love her to bits now .

any help and advice would be greatful , sorry for long post

Mike

20181020_083226.jpg
 

Miss Annamarie

Rollerblading along the road
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She's gorgeous! I'm new as well I've had my Isla for 2 months, but I can tell you don't have her main food source be seeds. They can be treats but they barely have any nutrition for them, get pellets and try to start introducing her to fruits and veggies (more vegetables than fruits) I can provide lists of safe fruits and vegetables if needed. How big is her cage and how often do you have her out of it at the moment? Do you have nesting material in the cage because that may be part of the egg problem, also if you have one of those hidey huts. Have you taken her to the vet yet to get her checked for diseases?
 
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nu2birds

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Kurt
She is so beautiful...........looks like Lemon Sherbet. if she's laying eggs like that, make sure she has enough calcium in her diet. So more pellets less seed for sure, and maybe a cuttlebone as well. Things you can do to discourage nesting and egg laying is make sure you don't have anything she can make a nest with like paper for her to shred and no Happy huts or dark holes or boxes for her to hide in. The days are getting shorter now, so that will help, but you might need to further shorten her day by making it dark after eight to ten hours. You can remove the eggs and replace with dummies or just remove when she has lost interest. Plentiful food.........long days.........material that she can shred and stuff with.......... dark comfy places to nest will encourage her to continue laying. So make sure you have all that dealt with. Good luck, she sure is a cutie that's for sure!!
 

TikiMyn

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Welcome! She is gorgeous!
Try converting her to a diet of pellets, sprouts and veggies, pellets are priority now. Seeds are full of fat, that makes her body go into an ‘abundance’ State that encourages breeding. I am in the Netherlands, I feed my fids NutriBird and Beaphar pellets. I have tried TOPs and Harrisons but they didn’t like it.
How much sleep does she get? Increase it to 12-14 hours of uninteruppted sleep.
How Many does and activities does she have? Foraging and and playing can be a great distraction. Try not to have toys she can turn into nesting materials, so more like Bells, wood etc:)

Some links where you can learn more:
Teaching Your Pet Birds to Forage for Food | Beauty of Birds
Feathered Food Court | Avian Avenue Parrot Forum
 

Momo & Mido

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I don't know much about this topic. But I read somewhere that taking away the eggs will encourage them to lay more. So it's best to keep them where they are (is what I read).

And OMG how cute is she!
 

Garet

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Montreal, Quebec
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how do I stop her from looking to nest all the time . her eggs will not have
any chicks in them ,

how long do I let her lay on the eggs , so many mixed reports out there

also what is best diet , at moment she has food I got in pet shop,
that has lots of seeds etc

so have loads to learn , I love her to bits now .

any help and advice would be greatful , sorry for long post

Mike

View attachment 288886
First of all; thank you so much for looking after this little one!

Now, on to your questions;

  1. Some girls are just prolific egg layers. You can try to mitigate the behavior, though, by not providing nesting sites and putting her to bed a little earlier and waking her up a little later. Cover her cage at night so she doesn't get up with the sun. This helped one of my girls who was a regular stop laying and has greatly reduced how often my other lays (back to back to weeks in between to a whole month without an egg).
  2. You should let her sit until she loses interest. You'll know when she's ready. Triss generally gets more active, spends less time with the eggs, and gets less aggressive and wants to spend more time with me when she's ready.
  3. Pellets, seeds, vegetables (no avocado, mushrooms, onions, or uncooked beans), fruit (limited quantities, no tomatoes), nuts (unseasoned, no salt, best to avoid peanuts), egg (scrambled and cooked with the finely cooked shell added in. She likely needs the calcium and protein now more than ever since she's laid eggs, but provide sparingly when she's not). Once in a blue moon treats can include ONE whole grain Cheerio, a tiny portion of cooked rice, a very small piece of a single noodle. They do make birdie pasta which is safe to serve in larger quantities, as the pasta is made specifically for birds out of appropriate veggies and fruit. If you do get it, I wouldn't cook the whole serving size for such a small bird. A teaspoon a serving should be enough.
 

TikiMyn

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I don't know much about this topic. But I read somewhere that taking away the eggs will encourage them to lay more. So it's best to keep them where they are (is what I read).

And OMG how cute is she!
That’s correct! If you take them away while she still is nesty, she Will lay more to ‘complete’ her clutch so she can start incubating them. You can give her fake eggs so her clutch is complete, that might help too.
 
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