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Question:

August 22, 2022

Aggressive/untamed lovebird


Hi!

I have a female lovebird who is 4 1/2 months old. I got her from a pet store when she was 3 months old. There are no bird rescue places in my area that I know, otherwise I would have gotten a rescue. But this pet store is family-owned and apparently has a good reputation. They breed their own birds, I was told she’d been hand-raised and was used to human interaction.

One mistake I made was not trying to handle her in the store to see how she would react. The store worker reached into her cage and she flew out, and I picked her up to put her back in, but that was it. She seemed alarmed and I didn’t want to traumatize her.

When I brought her home, she was extremely shy and quiet. I figured she needed to get used to her environment, so I let her be for a few days, just quietly moving around her so she’d get used to me. Little by little she moved around more and started to peep. I also have a pair of budgies, who are in the same room but in a separate cage. She seems to enjoy “chatting” with them and often keeps to the side of the cage that’s closest to theirs.

She was fearful of me at first. I started by feeding her millet through the bars of her cage. Then we moved on to my hand in the cage, and she nibbled millet that way. Now I’ve “tricked” her into stepping on my finger to get the millet, by placing my finger along her favourite perch and keeping the millet just out of reach so she’ll put one (sometimes two!!) feet on my finger to get to it.

I was encouraged by this progress because she was so shy at first. But we seem to be stuck at this stage for weeks now. She won’t step up of her own accord. They say to try rubbing a bird’s heads so it can get used to your touch, but if I don’t have a treat she won’t let my finger near her, and in fact she bites me quite a lot.

She seems healthy, she’s active in her cage, she has happily destroyed all her toys. But she doesn’t seem to enjoy interacting with me. I thought it was in a lovebird’s nature to bond with its human if there was no other lovebird around — so it makes me sad that she’s not bonding with me, not only for my sake but for hers too! I want her to bond and be happy if it’s in her nature to do so.

Do you think she will come around? Should I accept that humans just aren’t her thing and get another lovebird for her to bond with? Does having budgies in the same room interfere with the bonding? (I live in an open-plan apartment so I’m not sure how I could keep them apart.)

The budgies were rescued from another pet store. They are a bonded pair. They eat treats out of my hand, but otherwise don’ t want much to do with me even though I interact with them every day. But I don’t feel as badly about them because they have each other. All birds have big flight cages and lots of toys and attention.

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you!


Answer:

Hi Kathleen,

So far you are doing everything I would advise. It takes time to build trust, and when a hand fed lovebird isn’t handled regularly once it is weaned, they can be like this for a while. While flying is the best form of exercise, it is easier to work with a bird that is clipped. If she can fly away from you, she will be hard to work with. So I would have her clipped if she is flying – her feathers will grow back when she molts. I know 6 weeks seems like a long time to work with a bird, but it can take much longer to get a bird to come around to being handled. I think you can learn a lot by reading our pages on behavior and taming & training. Sessions go better when you can get a bird away from the cage and work in a small room like a bathroom(close the toilet lid). You might want to try to stick train her to get her out of the cage and away from it, and save you from getting bit. Lovebirds, especially females, can be extremely cage territorial. Keep spending time with her, talking to her and remember only positive reinforcement – if she bites or does something you don’t want her to do, just quietly walk away. Read these pages below and see if they don’t give you more tips so you can make more progress and feel better about the progress you have made. As for the budgies, those probably aren’t affecting her progress. But always keep them apart from her – lovebirds have a much stronger beak and can hurt or kill a budgie with no warning.

Pet Bird and Parrot Behavior

Teaching Your Bird

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda

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