HOME

BIRDS &
INFORMATION
SHEETS

BIRD
SUPPLIES

SEED

SUPPLEMENTS

FEED

BOARDING

GROOMING &
SERVICES

ABOUT THE
OWNERS

CONTACT US

STORE HOURS

MAIL

IN THE WILD

The wild peach-face lovebird is a 6” long bird that is dark green on its back and a lighter green below with a pinkish-red forehead and a pink face, throat and upper breast.  The peach-face lovebird originally comes from South-West Africa, southern Angola and Namibia, south to northern Cape Province in South Africa and Botswana.

IN CAPTIVITY

The peach-face lovebirds were introduced to aviculture less than a hundred years ago.  By the 1960’s they were being widely bred throughout Europe and the Americas.  By this time the colour mutations began to show up.  Since that time aviculturists have been intensively breeding to produce new colour mutations and to ensure genetic diversity.  Average life span for a peach-face lovebird is 15-18 years.

AS A PET

Peach-face lovebirds are the most popular of the “true” parrots that are available today, due to its wonderful clown like personality and the many beautiful colour mutations.   Hand-fed babies make wonderful and affectionate pets, that have the ability to talk (though they seldom do) and they love to play and do tricks.  They can also be a handful at times due to their natural stubbornness.  This stubbornness is partially due to the fact that a lovebird won’t back down, if it feels threatened, it will threaten back.

A common misconception is that lovebirds must be bought as a pair, this is not true.  When you take a hand-fed baby home and you spend a lot of time with it, it will bond to you as its best friend and it will be happy with its “human” companionship.  The dangers with buying two lovebirds at the same time are these: first, if you buy two babies at the same time, they are probably related.  If these two “lovebirds” are related and they try to breed, there could be problems with the young.  Second, if you were expecting both lovebirds to be tame to you while they are living together, this is not likely to happen.  Since the lovebirds will be spending all day and night with each other they might bond with each other instead of you.  The reason for the word “might” is because if they are not compatible they will probably end up fighting each other.  With any of these scenarios, you would not end up with a handle-able pet that you thought you were going to get.

Peach-face lovebirds cannot be sexed visually with any accuracy.  Some people go by the shape of the tail as a guide, a pointed tail may indicate a female and a rounded tail may indicate a male, but this is not always accurate.  Behaviour is sometime a better method of sexing a peach-face lovebird.  Males are generally less aggressive than the females, in the wild the females aggressiveness is necessary to keep her nest site.  The other trait to look for is paper chewing, the males generally chew up the paper into little balls, the females will usually chew the paper into long strips and she will quite often try to stuff these strips into her rump feathers to carry them up to her nest.

CAGING

A minimum size cage for one peach-face lovebird is 19”*11”*19” high, a larger cage is preferred.  This gives the peach-face lovebird a minimum of room to move around with toys and dishes in the cage, a larger cage will give this active little bird more room to play.  The perches in the cage should be 5/8” diameter to spread his weight evenly on the perch. If the perch is too small it can cause sores on the bottom of the feet.  Peach-face lovebirds are little scamps and if you put them into a cage with outside dishes, they will most likely figure out how to remove the dish and escape.

DIET

Peach-face lovebirds do best on a seed mix that is at least 1/2 “canary” seed (that’s the name of the grain) and contains a variety of other small grains, such as Feathered Friends Small Parrot Mix.  Quite a few “commercial” mixes use filler seeds such as red millet, which has no nutritional value.  The same “commercial” mixes use food colouring on some of the seeds as well as pellets. Peach-face lovebirds colour vision is remarkable and they will usually ignore these coloured seeds.  Thus you end up paying for scatter on the bottom of the cage.  Sunflower seeds can be fed as a treat, too many in the diet can lead to liver problems.

Peach-face lovebirds require gravel in their diet to grind up the seed in the gizzard. Peach-face lovebirds also require vitamin supplements, Feathered Friends Aqua-Vite and mineral supplements, such as Complete Mineral Supplement, as a seed diet alone is deficient in both.

Peach-face lovebirds enjoy having “treats” in their diet.  A treat is any food that is not a staple and it should be fed to them accordingly.  Spray millet is a favourite of all peach-face lovebirds.  There are many good treat mixes, such as Feathered Friend Budgie/Cockatiel Treat Mix.  Most peach-face lovebirds will also eat fruits and vegetables, such as broccoli, kale, spinach, carrot tops, dandelion, chickweed, apple, pear, melons, bananas, persimmons, etc.  Lettuce should be avoided, as it is mostly water.  Always feed fruits and vegetables in small amounts and if you hang them in the cage, the peach-face lovebird is more likely to try it.