Perils of mixing Lovebirds with other birds

[avinet]

A few years ago some of you may remember an advert on TV that Trill put out showing a mixed aviary of cheerful little birds all eating Trill and living happily together. Only problem with the ad was the mix included Peachface Lovebirds. Now while I think Lovebirds in general and Peachfaces in particular are lovely little parrots ( have to say that otherwise Precious and Robert will yell at me ) they are a danger to other types of birds, and especially can attack the toes of other birds.

Unfortunately after the ad by Trill started appearing some thought it was OK to mix Lovebirds with other species and we used to spend quite a bit of time explaining that adverts can't always be believed (can any be believed - but lets not go there tonight!). And even more unfortunately some did try to mix Lovebirds with others, usually with detrimental results for the others.

During that period we saw several in the shop bought in for first aid. One was a Princess girl, lovely bird that had been a house pet until the noise (they can be loud, we have lived with 2 in the house for around 15 years and I have the ringing ears to prove it) persuaded them to put it out into an aviary with a pair of Peachfaces - after all if Trill said it was OK who were they to argue

Sadly for the Princess it didn't work out and before they had noticed the poor little girl had lost most of her toes. They bought it in to me expecting miracles I think - maybe toe transplants - but when I explained it needed vet treatment pretty quickly before gangrene set in they cried poor and abandoned it to our care.

So after a trip to our friendly avian vet, a quick anaesthetic and a clean up of what was left of the feet, she spend a few days in the hospital cage while the feet healed. Following which she came home - as so many aged, maimed and plucked birds have, and into the retirement aviary where she has been ever since - must be around 4 or 5 years now. Very happy - plenty of space to fly around in - shared with budgies, cockatiels, finches canaries, and even 3 well behaved lovebirds - hey, rules are there to be broken sometimes . We did try bringing a male home to be a boyfriend but it didn't work out - she ignored him so in the end we passed him on to a more responsive female to save him from frustration. She is happy as she is - will land on a shoulder at times, have a chat, and just do her own thing.

Anyway enough of the chat and on to the photos - pretty self explanatory really, and the back toes are as bad as the front toes.

cheers,

Mike

[xoxoEbzxoxo]

That reminds me, the place I am getting my rescue aviaries from has a galah that was found 25 yrs or more ago that had one broken foot and a broken wing, He eventually chewed the toes on the broken foot, after chewing them off he got the other foot stuck in a food bowl and ended up chewing the whole foot off! He now drags himself around on his breast bone and seems very happy for a galah that has lost both feet and a broken wing. He dances and say hello. This just proves that galahs can be VERY tough birds. Its quite a story this old galah has..

[gypsy]

Squark (teil) has toes missing I thought was bad but not compared to this lovely girl Pet shop guy told hubby that the teil would be fine in with the ringnecks! No amount of protesting by me would change hubby's mind!
Anyway, I won ( at Squarks expense) and he now lives happily back inside, minus a few toes

[twr]

Oh, the poor birdies (all three of them). What I often read though, about birds with disabilities, is that they don't feel sorry for themselves and just get on with life. Some of us could learn from them, me thinks

Mike, reminds me of the many adverts for small fish bowl, or many of the small all in one aquariums, that show pictures of too many fish, or fish of wrong species together, in too small an amount of water. Advertising that gives the wrong impressession to new pet owners is just annoying and irresponsible.