My 2 year old male peach face lovebird loves to shred paper and put it in his tail. I also put a bed in his cage. Recently I have found out this is nesting behavior and I took the paper and bed away. He is a single lovebird. Now he seems to retreat to his cage and doesn’t want to come out as much as he use to. Is this normal? How can I get him to socialize more again?
Hi Shirley,
You are correct that this is nesting behavior, so removing the bed/nest was the best thing to do. Birds do not use anything as a bed, so when an owner adds something like that for a bird to sleep in, the bird just sees it as a nest. You can try letting him have the paper. Since this is a male, you don’t have the egg laying behavior to worry about. Male lovebirds do enjoy making strips to carry around, and generally that’s as far as it goes. He might be a bit bored without that activity. I would make sure he has some fun toys and encourage him to come out of the cage. Most lovebirds do best once they are out of sight of their cage. He should get back to normal soon.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
