Finally, Our Female LOVEBIRD Laid Eggs

Photo: Publicdomainpictures.net

Do you intend to keep and breed lovebirds? If you do, there are things that you need to consider before you buy a couple of lovebirds to breed. As a beginner in keeping this type of bird, you need to know many things before you decide to buy them. If you want to see them breed, you have to be sure that the couple consists of a real female and a real male lovebird. Failing in determining their sexes will result in failure in breeding because homosexual birds will not result in infertile eggs to produce lovebird's chicks. 

Another thing that you need to know is the age of the couple. If you do not want to wait too long for the couple to breed, you have to be sure that the lovebird couple that you buy are fully grown a couple. Because lovebirds reach maturity in the age range of 8 to 12 months old and are ready for breeding when they are between 12 to 15 months old. Lovebirds have a long lifespan if they are well taken care of. So, you have to prepare a good home for them to stay and breed for a long period of time.

What makes people interested in lovebirds? It is hard to deny that lovebirds have special ways of attracting pet lovers. First of all, lovebirds are cute with their colorful feathers and parrot's look. The lovebird couple invokes their keeper's love with their attractive look and nice and loving behaviors. The most interesting behavior that can be demonstrated by a lovebird couple is their loving behavior. They demonstrate their loving for each other every moment of the day even if it is not their mating season. The most frequent behavior demonstrated by them is feeding each other. Possibly, this behavior equals to kissing in humans. Lovebirds are also known for their intelligence and playfulness. 

So, in addition to equipping their cage with several perches and a nest box for breeding, you need to provide them with several toys for them to play with. At first, you may think that a lovebird which bites its perch, cage bars, and toys does it for nothing. In fact, it has a purpose with its bites. You need to learn why it bites. Many things about these birds will amaze you at first, however, if you love them you will learn about the things that amaze you. You can find these new lessons from other lovebirds' keepers who share their experiences on the net.

Being inexperienced in keeping lovebirds, we had to wait very long for the female of our lovebird couple to lay its first eggs. The reason was that we were unable to detect the age of the female bird when we bought the couple. We just trusted the former owner who said that we would not wait for long to see the bird breed. Now we realized that the female bird that we bought was about 4 to 5 months old at the time we bought the couple. 

And it took us more than 8 months to see it mating and laying eggs. However, we are lucky that the couple consists of a true female and a true male, so we finally could see the female lay its first eggs. Now we are waiting for the couple's first chicks to hatch. My son has already prepared a new cage for the chicks when they are able to live independent of their parents.

By Majelis Abu Hamid Majelis is a librarian, an English teacher, and a translator working at the Library of Graduate Program of Sriwijaya University (Pascasarjana Unsri), Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia.  Article Source: EzineArticles

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