Looking for Some Advice on a Pair of Lovebirds!

ibrevity

New member
Nov 20, 2011
9
0
Parrots
Lovebirds:
(Elysium "Lyssie", 3 y/o, female)
(Olympus "Oli", 10 mo/s, male)
Hello all. Long story short I'm here because I'm worried about my female lovebird, Elysium. She's nearing four years old, DNA'd female, peach-faced. She's currently underweight and I'm trying to convince her to take to fruits and vegetables, and nuts and rice in the meantime to get her weight back up.

The problem is this; I have a male lovebird (not acquired on purpose) named Olympus. DNA'd male, only just eight months old, got him on Valentine's Day of this year. I love the kid dearly, he's a total clutz but: he's obsessed with Elysium. He's begun to encourage mating behavior in her, and as she's underweight I'm very interested in keeping her away from laying eggs. In fact, I'm uninterested at all in putting her under the stress of raising chicks.

She has just this morning laid an egg, and not two weeks back laid another two, which caused me to take her to an emergency vet because she had tore her cloaca and it was swollen a great deal. She stopped laying eggs after the vet visit (thank god!) but I caught her laying another this morning. I'm getting worried for her, primarily with the nutrients involved.

I know for certainty that the egg isn't fertile; Elysium and Olympus are often out together but I never let him mount her, and they're constantly supervised (ie if I leave my room for a minute I take at least one of them with me).

Should I get rid of Olympus to discourage this breeding behavior? Is there some easier way to do so without having to give him up?


p.s. in case someone asks; they live in the same bedroom but have individual cages that are about two-three feet away from each other. Both are covered and in complete darkness/silence from 8:30 PM and 8:00 AM every day.
 

Kae

New member
May 18, 2015
86
0
California
Parrots
Cockatiel-Artemis 2 Lovies-Angel&Addie Senegal(My dad's)
The most important thing is getting her weight up. If Olympus is too interested in her then it may be necessary to move him to a separate cage nearby. If you really don't want them mating then they need to be heavily supervised but before you make that decision you should try to convince E to expand her diet.
 

EAI

New member
Jul 25, 2014
867
2
Honolulu, Hawaii
Parrots
Budgerigar: Arrow, Esther, Kratos, Cora, Ducky.


Lovebird: Izzy, Gizmo.
To get her weight up, how about adding in extra seeds and millets (just more than usual, not the entire diet) to add fat as well as high calorie items----I found those to be honey treats.

I would honestly move him into another room until she gets her weight up, but its better to have other input...
 

mh434

New member
Oct 28, 2014
473
9
BC, Canada
Parrots
Yellow-naped Amazon "Sammy"
Love birds (4)
Green-cheeked Conure "Skittles" - now, sadly gone from my life
Blue-Crowned Conure "Tequila"
African Grey "Reno" - sadly, now gone from my life
As far as the nutrients are concerned, calcium is going to be important, as she uses up a LOT while forming an egg. We were fortunate enough to watch one of our babies hatch and what surprised us was that mom immediately ate every scrap of the shell, obviously to regain the calcium the egg had cost her.

I don't know offhand what extras you can give her to replace the calcium, but it needs to be done. A vet can help with that.

Whenever one of our females goes on an egg-laying spree, they always get really skinny. In order to stop these sprees, we move them to a different room for a few days. The change in environment seems to interrupt the cycle.
 

gracebowen

Active member
Jan 14, 2015
1,439
3
San Antonio
Parrots
Cora lovebird
Sky parakeet
With my birds I found that if I removed seed at night and fed veggies in the am they ate more veggies. I do t give them seed till noon now. As the days passed they began eating more veggies every day. Oh and rice was in the mix too. Mine also prefer their veggies cooked.

The first 2 days they ate very little. Now they eat well.
 

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