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Hi everyone, I am a freshman here! I would like to introduce my lovebirds, Twitch and Peach.
We live in NYC, the Bronx. Both Twitch and Peach were from the local pet shops, never hand fed or socialized. I had to fix their diet and social life from the scratch.
Twitch was my first bird, I really was spending a lot of time with him! We have learned many tricks and he became a star over Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_VFCCyma8g
(check our other videos as well!)
After a year I became too busy with my job and other stuff, so I got him a friend, a nice lutino girl - Peach. She actually happened to be really sick and we had to go to the vet, give here injections etc, but she did fine and became a lovely tame girl (I trained her with a help of Twitch).
She actually learned several simple tricks and after that, OMG, gave me an egg! I didnt really expect that and all the time tried not to stimulate them for breeding, but what can one do with a true love? ))
We've decided to get a box for them and let them have kids. We have 3 beautiful green chicks 4 weeks old and their parents wake me up every morning at 6 to get their soft food, sprouts, and green beans)) The oldest is already trying to come out from the box (although he doesn't have feathers on his back yet) and come back, and he is pretty good at it!
I try to spend some time with the kids every day and feed them a little bit with formula, so they would get used to people and become good friends. Parents actually feed them 24/7, so it's hard to find time when they are hungry for formula.
Twitch and Peach stayed tame and nice, although they hate me to clean the cage protecting the box. Otherwise, they still remember all the tricks and hang out with me when not busy with the kids!
We are looking for friends and be happy to any comments Twitch and Peach say hello to all of you and try to type on my keyboard but I do not think it's the best idea of theirs ))

I'm very thankful to Xenia, who is my friend and who took these pictures! I would never get anything like that with my digital calculator

One of our babies! 14 days old

They are adorable. I would love to hear how you trained them to do tricks. Our little girl, Peaches (of course) is a wild woman and I can't imagine getting her to stay put long enough to train her. She is very smart though and has picked up words from our Quaker and seems to learn the ins and outs of her environment very quickly. She is currently sitting on 5 fresh (tho infertile) eggs so we are letting her rest right now. I am new to this chat and am looking for any advice anyone can give on how to take care of Peaches during her maternity. Pam

Hi, thanks for the reply!
Does your bird live alone? If she is laying eggs without a partner, then smth is wrong with the environment. Does she have a husband?

Wow! These are the cutest pictures!!! I agree, how did you get them to do tricks?! I'd love to start training Sawyer.

Regarding the babies, there's no need to feed them in order to tame them. Handling, alone, will socialize them and teach them that the human touch is a good thing. Let the parents feed and just have fun playing with the little ones. If your parents are tame, they will continue to be that way once the babies have fledged.

Hi everyone, thanks for the interest and replies!
Babies are young grown ups now, and they have learned a lot from their parents. Unfortunately, I do not have much time to play with them, and their parents teach them all )) As soon as they never wanted me to touch them, the babies are not big fans of my hands as well. But they are not afraid of anything, and it is so much fun to watch them taking bath under the tap in the kitchen sink or chewing bird magazines )) Their farther, Twitch, is actually not very happy to have them on their territory and fight them from time to time.

About the tricks. I taught Twitch tricks with a clicker, based on the advices from "Clicker training for birds" by Melinda Johnson. Peach have learned easy tricks (based on targeting) from Twitch, and soon decided to become a mother, so I didnt continue her education )) They both know basic things, like step up, go to the cage, "stop" etc. Recently, the babies are taking all their attention, and although they still do tricks for me, they have difficulties with some things they know well, like "stop". It's very hard to stop chewing if there are 3 more birds around doing the same and not listening I plan to fix it pretty soon, the babies already learn how to step up and go to the cage, step by step they will become educated birds as well.

I do not plan to teach them tricks, because 5 birds is too much for me and I'm currently looking for the new families for the babies. I will let the new owners to enjoy the happines of teaching by themselves, and the babies are ready to learn everything very quick ))