At BFB Lovebirds we have number of lovebirds, pairs who sometimes decide to become parents!
About 10 days after mating, lady lovebird starts laying eggs. One egg every 2-3 days. Sometimes she will lay 2 and sometimes 6 eggs in total!
Then she will sit on eggs for about 23 days. After that period eggs will start hatching, again one egg every 2-3 days.
And babies are being born!
They are extremely tiny, blind and have no feathers. Mum will start feeding them straight away.
They will be growing very fast. Around day 10 they open their eyes for the first time. Also, they will start getting very light feathers.
At that point it is still very difficult to say what colours they will be. Also, it is not possible to say if they are girls or boys.
When babies are about 2.5-3 weeks, we will take them from their parents and bring them home.
At that point parents can rest and heavy work starts for us!
We will need to feed babies with special baby formula using syringe every 3-4 hours, day, and night.
Beginning is very difficult as babies are not used to syringe or the taste of the formula. Also, they are very fragile, so we need to be very careful with them.
After a few days they get familiar with us and hand feeding. At that point we usually swap syringe for tiny spoon.
3-4 weeks babies have already lots of feathers so you can see their colours.
Also, at that time we will take blood samples from their tiny foot and send to the laboratory for DNA testing. The results will be sent back to us within 7 days and at that point we know which one is girl and which one is boy!
Now we can have Gender Reveal Party!
When babies are about 5-6 weeks, they will start eating by themselves. We call that weaning.
Also, they will start to fly or start taking fly lessons.
When they are 7-8 weeks, they are ready to go to their new home. New owners can come and collect them.
They will be very friendly; they will like cuddles and kisses. They would like to have little fly around the room and then get back to their owners.
With more training and lots of patients they will become best friend to their owners.
That why we hand feed them, so they are not scared of people, and they like to play with their owners and give them lots of love.