NEED HELP - Rescue (ish) Lovebird Chicks

**EonaMillion** · 06-17-2019, 10:00 PM

Busy day today, we left at 7:00 AM to go and pick up some lovebird chicks we saw on craigslist (sketchy I know). The person selling said they were 8-10 weeks old, had just started eating seeds on their own. He lied. We have some experience with birds, an Amazon, and we now have an almost 2 year old starling we've raised from a baby. My mom grew up surrounded by birds, so after the loss of two separate wild rescues (injuries from the fall), we saw the ad for the lovebirds and went for it.
These babies are more around 3-4 weeks, and are absolutely terrified, makes sense because they had quite the drive to get home. We got some lovebird/cocketiel starter (powder+water), and some eye droppers and they each had like 3 eye droppers about an hour ago, theyre now in their little cage with a cozy and some water, and food (cockatiel feed (same kind they had been eating before), and some kind of lovebird crumble food that the starling had been eating). I've read through several young lovebird posts, and from them we have decided we will be feeding them every 3 hours unless they don't take anything, if they don't we will change it to 4 hours.
Basically we are just super disappointed, we thought we were getting babies that were mostly independent as we are going on vacation in a few weeks. As they will not be fully independent yet we will probably just be taking them with us, and letting the house sitter care for the rest of the critter collection.
In the end, HELP. Anything you know about lovebirds would be amazing, best food brands, they have a cage and we are insane bird spoilers (i would honestly be okay living in the starling's cage, its monstrous) so they will get a bigger one when they start flying, stages of growth, how to raise them so they are friendly, the guy said he sexed them and that these two were male, not sure I trust that but we will take care of them no matter what.
Their names are Fig Henri and Kiwi Batman, last names in honor of the previous lost babies, and them and Peep Francis (the starling) will be loved until the end of their days.

Not sure how to post pics to here is the google drive link of the ad
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwo...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwo...ew?usp=sharing

**boomer girl** · 06-18-2019, 09:45 AM

Oh my goodness how horrible the last owner did not keep these little babies with the parents a little longer and thank goodness you found them and saved them from a inexperienced person taking them in. It sounds like you and your mom will do what it takes perfectly to keep them happy and healthy. I do not know much about raising babies so I cant help with that. Your babies are too cute for words!!! I love them when they are this age and anyone who knows me knows I cant stop smiling looking at black beaked baby lovebirds.

Boomer loved roudybush pellets and also TOPS (Totally organic pellets) pellets for small birds. You can order TOPS from Amazon or if you have a good bird store they might carry it. It is a awesome brand of organic human grade food for birds. They have a TOP's Napoleon's Seed Mix that Boomer loved when I soaked it overnight for him. His favorite seed mix was Volkman cockatiel seed mix without sunflower seeds in it. He ate it his entire life and refused to eat other seed mixes except the TOPS mix. Oddly my daughters conure Tikki loves exactly the same seeds and pellets as Boomer did.

Please keep us updated on your new lovies and I really am very happy you saved them.

**EonaMillion** · 06-18-2019, 02:01 PM

http://www.tailfeathersnetwork.com/c...0&d=1560887579
Theres a photo from today's morning feeding, little wigglers are hard to get pictures of, and I forgot to resize it before uploading. oh well. I believe this one is Fig Henri. Based on advice I read in one of the other baby posts theyre getting fed every 4 hours with the powedered food mix stuff, and they have seeds available.

**ketcha** · 06-18-2019, 02:39 PM

21 days : 5 to 8 cc every 4 hours (4 to 5 feeding per day)
28 days : 8 to 10 cc every 5 hours (3 to 4 feeding per day)
35 days : 10 to 12 cc (3 feeding per day)

**EonaMillion** · 08-10-2019, 09:36 AM

Lovebirds are doing great! One just dropped seeds in my cheerios and we are now really pretty sure they're both female (greattttt) buy they're doing great, being spoiled, chewing on remotes and ps4 controllers etc. We got them a new cage and its huge and now we will probably have to get another as they are fighting. (They have a huge cage and prefer to stand on top of each other and bite beaks....rude. thanks yall. Your help is greatly appreciated.