After Barney passed, I always wanted to buy another Lovebird. But because I had no experience keeping birds as pets before, I decided to buy a keet which is cheaper than a Lovie. I guess, I was giving a shot with the keet and planned to see how it went.
I never imagined how much joy a bird could bring into my life. Baby Blue is a really good, friendly and entertaining bird. I always make sure that he is well-fed, his water changed every morning, cage cleaned several times a day, and shower with baby shampoo once a week and play with him several times a day. Still, I can't see him spaced out in his cage, lonely, after Snowy's gone.
So, one day I went to a bird store away from home and scored the cutest and most timid Lovebird among others in the cage.
Last time, Baby Blue and Snowy was put into a box with small holes when I bought them, and ever since they were traumatic with darkness. They will freeze and quack unceasingly every time
I put them into a sleeping box or under a blanket
or cup them in my palms.
So this time, I decided to buy a small cage which is usually used for cicadas. It's a small wooden box with iron screen on both sides, enough for one or two birds. At least they can look out of the box, and wouldn't be traumatic.
The man who sold the Lovebird said that it's a male and still young, about 2 or 3 months. I just accept what he said since it's not easy to distinguish a Lovebird age, because once they're weaned in about 2 months, they will look like an adult lovebird. So you can't really tell their age anymore unless the breeder reveal it. At least you can observe its eye ring, if the ring is narrow, then it's a young bird.
All I want is a young bird, so I can train them to stand on my finger and hopefully to talk...
Another problem was distinguishing whether it is a male or female. It's also not easy to know the sex of lovebirds since they look the same. I found from the internet several characteristic that differentiate male to female Lovies, one of it is that female Lovies usually have bigger bodies. Another characteristic we can observe is that the tails end of male Lovie crosses while the female's tails are straight on. Finally, when they reach the age of 1 year old, female Lovies tend to stuff her underside with pieces of newspaper that she tear off from the bottom of her cage or else she'll be busy building a nest.
If we don't want to bother observing all these, we can just take them to the vet to have a DNA test. Fast and Easy. But since we don't really have avian vet in my town, I only have the earlier option.
Despite the unknown sex, I named it Elmo because his eyes ring reminded me of Elmo. I also called him 'Bibi' in case it's a female. So I tried to make him familiar with these names. I know it's a bit crazy. Well, anyway, Elmo is also an addition of joy at home. He's really cute. Despite Lovies love to be cuddled, Elmo who is still a baby loves to sleep inside a fluffy towel.
Look at how cute he is while sleeping!
The next problem is that I don't really know what variety of Lovebirds he belongs to. We don't really have certificate for the bird we buy from the bird store. So I search through the Internet, and found that he might be a Blue Masked Lovebird, though he might also be a mix-breed.
Anyway, Elmo is not so easy to tame. It seems that he's a bit traumatic to be hand-handled. Every time I insert my hand into the cage to train him to stand on my finger he will fly frantically with his wings flapping against the iron bars and finally fall down to the bottom of the cage. It's sometimes frustrating trying to earn his trust. Since he loves the towel, I usually cover my hand with the towel when I try to persuade him to come down to my hand, so I can put him to sleep.
At playing time, I usually takes both Baby Blue and Elmo out of the cage and let them play outside. I let them perch on the aluminium rack for hanging clothes. Elmo and Baby Blue has been good friends though at times they fight over food and Elmo's mischief. Elmo likes to elbowed Baby Blue down from the perch and sometimes biting on Baby Blue's claws where he will mostly get his head pecked in return. What a funny bird!
