Lovebirds (Agapornis)

Lovebirds (Agapornis)

Lovebirds are very popular pets and are a good for first-time bird owners.

These birds are great pets for older children but may be a bit too nippy for younger children.
They are quiet birds, so they can live in an apartment with you. They can also be friendly with all members of your family if they are hand-fed and socialized from a young age. They can become nippy as they mature if they are not properly or consistently handled. They need to be kept singly or they will bond with each other rather than you.

The most popular types kept as pets are the Fischer's, Masked, and Peach-Faced. Make sure you buy a young bird rather than an older one because they are easier to tame from a young age. You can tell that one is younger by the amount of black on his beak--the more black, the more young (this may be different with different color mutations). The black normally disappears when they are 4 months old.
If you are able to provide your bird with adaquate care and love, then this might be the perfect bird for you.
Lovebirds are pint-sized bundles of joy. They have the full personality of parrots while being easy to house because of their size. Lovebirds are little clowns, playing for hours at a time. They love to hang from toys, spin them around, and dance on your shoulder. Watch out for your buttons! They love to pull them off your shirts! They love to snuggle and preen. Many people believe lovebirds must be kept in pairs. This is simply not true. A single lovebird makes a better pet because it bonds to you rather than to another lovebird.
Watch these young lovebirds play “The Mirror Game” – They fly up to their reflections in the mirror to watch themselves fly, then land, then the other one goes. They never hit the mirror and can play this game forever without getting tired.
While it is easy to keep a pair of lovebirds tame, if you plan on spending lots of time with your bird you can keep it alone. However, if you work long hours and don’t think you’ll have a lot of time for your love bird, we recommend you get him a companion. This will keep your lovebirds happy and prevent boredom.
It is important to realize that while lovebirds are a small parrot, they have the intelligence and abilities of some of the largest parrots. They can amaze you with their ability to escape their own cages (I have to put clips on the cage doors to keep them in, and sometimes they figure out how to open those!), they will sometimes try to become the little bosses of the household (hence, the same type of gentle dominance training used for larger parrots should be used with lovebirds), and they can learn to mimic sounds and speech on occasion

Types of Lovebirds

1) Fischer's
2) Masked
3) Peach-Faced