- Eyes open up at about 10 days, pin feathers start emerging in about 2-3 weeks, and they should start pecking at items on bottom of cage at about 3-4 weeks of age.
- Start weaning baby lovebirds at 4 weeks of age, when the baby is ready. Lovebirds need to imprint on humans at as early age as possible so they will be tame pet birds. When they start pecking at stuff on their brooder/cage bottom, you can start the weaning process.
- Handfeed lovebirds under 4 weeks of age every 4-5 hours or whenever their crops become empty (varies with each bird). The rule of thumb is whenever the crop is empty, except during the nighttime hours. It doesn't hurt them to be a little bit hungry if you can't meet a regular time (if you happen to be out shopping or something), but don't go too far over the time.
- Have them in some type of brooder situation where they have sufficient warmth, humidity, etc. They shouldn't still be in a nest without their parents. They need heat in order to process their food. They can be introduced to a cage when they can walk and climb on the cage wire and have enough feathers to keep them warm enough. Otherwise, the 3-week old should be in a brooder type setup and the 5-week old could probably be in a cage.
- Babies often try to feed off their clutchmates. This is normal. Their beaks are still soft so it's doubtful that injuries would occur.
Source: All Experts
Rodney and Tamara Money of True Love Aviary maintains:
- If you are going to be a great bird breeder then you need to buy a scale that measure in grams. You can get them at the birdie boutique also. Healthy, 8 week old+ lovebirds can weigh from 45-52 grams giving a gram or two.
- To introduce "big bird" food to babies, introduce the food to the babies when they start to chew on their bedding. Let them have a taste by physically placing a very small piece of "big bird food" in their beaks (make sure they do not choke). After you hand feed babies with formula, place them in their brooder next to their food; formula stimulates them to eat "big bird" as they get older. At 7 weeks, introduce cooked foods and fruits, sprouts, and veggies.
- Every baby is different. If your babies are still very young, like 4 weeks for example, and they are not eating formula as well, then cut down on the number of feedings. Around 5.5-6 weeks of age, baby lovebirds should be on two feedings and taking around 8-10+cc's every feeding.
- At 7 weeks old, the babies should be on 1 feeding. And by 8 weeks, they should be fully weaned and ready for their vet exam. Let your babies learn to fly before they wean or you will have a very difficult time weaning them; it's natures way. Then after they wean if you want to clip your birds you can.
- Drop a feeding or two every week. When the babies are three weeks old, start placing crunched up Nutri-Berries, Avicakes, pellets, seed, and millet for the babies to eat and explore. When they start eating, you can add a water bowl also.
- If the babies are crying at an hour or two, they need more food during feedings. Use either Roudybush or Harrison's Hand feeding formulas. Exact Hand feeding Formula that you can get at Petsmart and other retail pet stores is a bad formula. The food is hard for the babies to digest and stays in the crop which can cause an infection. 10-14 day old babies will take up to 3-4 cc's. Only use O-ring syringes. You can get them at birdieboutique (google it).
- When you pull the entire clutch at 10-14 days, or 10-16 days, if you have 4 babies, then feed them every 3 hours from 8:00 am-11:00 pm (that is about 6 feedings.) Other "experts" would say less feedings, but others have found out that this is closer to what their parents do.
