upatsix.com - Your Source For Pet Bird Information

I just gotta share this! Maka, our lovie, got to have her free time while we were reading the Sunday paper. She flew over and decided to share the newspaper experience - all be it lovie style. She started shredding thin strips down the edge of the paper and tucking them in her feathers on her back! It's too bad she couldn't get the strips to stay. I was looking forward to seeing her fly with them.

Haha, it sounds like she may be a he! Those male Lovies get so mad that they cannot get them to stay! Or is she just young? I love watching them do that. But be careful that she does not try to nest if she is not old enough or does not have a mate. I'm sure you know about egg binding and the other dangers of laying.

What is funny too is that sometimes male can get the strips to stay. I have a male who likes to tuck strips and he has actually got them to stay for about 4-6 feet of flight!

Actually, I don't know about egg binding. I ran a search but got a long list of birds for sale.

This is the Minnesota lutino that my mom caught in her neighbor's yard. As far as age - I have no idea. All I know is it prefers the males in the family, likes to land on heads and preen hair, has special soft cooing conversations with only me and bites everyone in the family except my 16 year old son. She is also the only bird we have.

Well, when a hen starts to lay, you need to let her sit on the eggs until she gets sick of them, do not take them away. If they are taken away, she may feel the need to lay more to make up for the eggs that are gone. This can lead to inproper developement of eggs that get "stuck" in the cloaca and then she can't pass them and becomes egg-bound. Usually a vet can give an injection to pass the egg, but sometimes it is hard to catch the hen before it is too late. Do not let her have too much nesting material or be allowed to sleep in a "hut" or anything resembling a nest, as this can cause her to lay and sometimes without a mate they will lay constantly (which can cause egg binding, calcium deficiancy, mood swings, and other things).

Oh, wow! Thanks for mentioning it and explaining it. There's not anything resembling a nest box in her cage and she can't reach the newspaper through the grate on the bottom.