Fighting to Cuddling?!

[ZoeG]

Hi all,
Just joined this group as I am unsure what to do about my 2 lovebirds Kulu and Lola.

We had Kulu (a peach face) for about 6 months and he was great, noisy little bugger but a real character, however we have been unable to hand train him, we never wanted to clip his wings and didn't really see the point in having a bird that couldn't fly.

Anyway, we were worried that Kulu was getting lonely during the day so decided get a second love bird (Lola, a pale blue and white lovebird) we went through all the correnr steps with quarantine and separate cages and its been about... 4 months, they were cuddling next to the bars of the cage all the time and seemed really interested in each other, we have let them out and they stick together like glue, initially there were a few little nips from Lola at Kulu but nothing serious and overall they seemed to get on great so 2 weeks ago we decided to move them into one, larger new cage, all new toys, new food pots and everything. All seemed fine but recently we've noticed that Kulu keeps biting Lolas feet/ankles and she squeaks (idk if this is in pain or if telling him to leave her alone)

She also nips at him and sometimes this can go on for over an hour, never more than a second or two but just persistent squabbling.

HOWEVER, the next minute they're cuddled up next to each other and preening each other, happy as Larry!
Within the first day of putting them together Kulu was regurgitating food for Lola, although I've not seen 'him' do it since (I say him because we actually don't know the gender of either of them).

My partner thinks they're fine and they're just establishing who is dominant, as I said they've not done any actual damage to each other and there has been no actual 'fights', just these little squabbles and the fact that Kulu keeps going for Lolas feet, they still both eat and drink and play with toys... so is there a problem here or should I just let them get on with it???

Any help much appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[BirdLady13]

First off, they're both gorgeous!
Getting Lola before you were able to handle Kulu is going to make bonding and training considerably more difficult (I assume Lola is also not hand tame). You're literally going to have to work twice as hard. Are you prepared for the possibility of babies since you're housing them together without knowing their genders? When you say "larger new cage" how large are we talking? If they don't have enough room to get away from each other it can definitely result in bickering.

 

[ZoeG]

Thank you!
They are both gorgeous and have such lovely personalities. We are fully willing to do what we need to to get these two bonded/tamed/hand trained, it's what we wanted from the beginning is birds who trust us and want to be near us.
The larger cage is about 2ft wide and 1.5ft tall, they both had plenty of room to flit around and we always give them loads of toys to destroy.

We are also open to them mating if that's what they end up doing. Kulu used to have a coconut in his cage and he absolutely loved it but he also kept chewing the rope hanging it up and broke it! Since then we've not put a other nest box or anything in.

If you have any advice on how to hand tame these two crazies I'd really appreciate it, all these videos we watch show already tame birds so it's hard to compare them.

Thank you!

 

[Pat H]

If I haven't done so already... WELCOME to the Avenue!!!

Love the Lovebirds!!! We lost our last one, Chirpie, and can't believe we haven't looked for another! Sure miss having one around!