rainbow lorikeet

[Izarra]

Hi all - A Rainbow Lorikeet may be added to my family in the near future...does anyone have any experience/information-that-only-a-person-owned-by-a-lorikeet would know? I'm actively scouring the internet for everything I can find!

Thanks!

[DizzyDezzy]

rainbow lorikeets are cute, curious anf friendly little birds, and make great pets... but there are a few drawbacks with owning them.
Firstly, they are nectar eaters, so they need to be on soft wet food all their life. Because it's wet, it will need to be changed at the very least twice a day as it will go off relatively quickly.
And the main drawback with owning them follows on from the liquid feeding. Two words : PROJECTILE POOPING.
Their poops are ALWAYS liquid, and they can shoot them a few feet away with extremely good aim 2
if you don't have a cage yet I suggest you get one with sea-through acrilic "seed catchers" on the sides to help keep most of the liquid poops off your furniture and floor...

[Izarra]

Thank you for your insight Here are some more slightly more specific questions...

1. I work with raptors, so I'm familiar with the projectile poops :cool so at least that won't be new! By acrylic "seed catchers" I assume you mean a metal cage with additional acrylic panels. Do you have any links to view cages such as this? Would an acrylic cage not be a good idea? (like the ones here: www.bird-cage.com/ )

2. About the diet: Everything I've read so far contradicts everything else on the diet. I know it's a soft diet...(I haven't found a Lorie/Lorikeet book yet - so these are just different websites)... some sites list seeds as part of the diet, others say absolutely no seeds, but grains are ok... Right now, this particular lorikeet is ONLY eating fruit, which I've also read is not good. Am I correct in thinking the diet should be Lorie nectar, moistened Lorie/lorikeet pellets, fruit and veggies...(avoiding high protein and iron), etc?

3. Anything else?? :haha It's so exciting!

[Kalvin]

I don't keep lories, but I keep hanging parrots. They eat the same kind of diet and need pretty much the same care.

I've found this site www.loriinae.com/index.html to be very helpful, and know the owner is a reputable keeper and breeder so trust the information on the site.

[DizzyDezzy]

1. Acrylic cages might work, but from what I have seen lorikeets LOVE climbing around on cage bars... I owuld go with the acrylic panels on the outside of a wire cage - easyer to remove and clean as well...

2.

Am I correct in thinking the diet should be Lorie nectar, moistened Lorie/lorikeet pellets, fruit and veggies

yes, that sounds like what I have heard about their diet. Harrison's Mash is great for the "pellet" part of the diet (I believe they also instruct to add corn syrup to the mix as the mash is not lorikeet speciffic)

3. They are absolutely wonderful little birds!

[tielguy]

Pretty bird!

[Izarra]

Hi everyone, thank you for all of the help (it will definately be helpful in the future!). It turns out that I will not be getting the Lorikeet...and I was actually looking forward to the "mush" diet I would have been preparing! hehe.

Thanks again!