[joseph]

Hi, I have lovebirds babies and the nest box is dirty. I asked from where I bought the parents if I have to clean it but he told me not to.

Now I m afraid that my chicks are suffering from splayed legs. What do I do please? For now I put some wood shavings which I bought from the pet store.

Help would be appreciated.

 

[FaeryBee]

The nest box should definitely be cleaned and it should also have a concave floor. How old are the chick at this point?

 

[joseph]

They are around 3 weeks

 

[FaeryBee]

Take the chicks out of the nest box and clean it as aluz has indicated in her post.

If you think the chicks legs are splayed they are going to need to be treated.

http://talkbudgies.com/budgie-breeding-[articles]/184105-splayed-leg-prevention-treatment.html

How many chicks are there?

 

[joseph]

There are 5 and 4. When I clean it what do I put for nesting material?

 

[aluz]

Unlike budgies, lovebirds are true nest builders and during breeding we should provide them with nesting material. You can use palm leaves, pine shavings or other type of nesting material, like CareFresh. This is used to line the bottom of the nest. After that you should let your pair build the nest the way they want to.
It's also important to try to maintain at least some of the original nest built by the parents and only remove the more soiled top part of the nest. Lovebirds are great builders and they do make quite intricate nests. So, instead of removing everything, you should leave a layer of what they have already built.

If you have removed everything already, then you must line the nest with a good substrate like pine shavings for example, put about 2 to 3 inches on the nest and then supply more material on the cage for the patents to add to the nest according to their liking.

The splayed legs on lovebirds can easily be corrected till they are 21 days old. You can use a make up sponge to put the legs in the right position and this should be kept for longer than a week. It's also important to check the progress and see if the sponge needs to be replaced.

You should also pay attention to the parents as they may very well neglect the chicks due to the foreign object on their legs, so you must be prepared to pull them out for hand feeding and finishing raising them on your own.

I'm wishing you the best of luck with your baby lovies.

 

[FaeryBee]

aluz has given you EXCELLENT advice! She is much more experienced with lovebirds than I.

Please follow her suggestions carefully.

 

[joseph]

Thank you very much for all the help. Well for now I only put some wood shavings since I don t have time because of work.

I provided palm leaves and wood shavings and they did biild a nest before they layed their eggs. But now it s covered with dirt most of. As I said before now I put wood shavings.

Tomorrow I will clean it and I either use a spinge or tape for the splayed legs since I am still on time, and that was some pain relief as I was too worried. As people say, we learn from our mistakes.

Thank You!!

 

[aluz]

You are most welcome!
Do take out the layer that is more dirty and if you can salvage anything that looks okay of the original nest, then leave it there and put some bedding on the top to replace the amount you have removed.
If everything is soiled, then take out everything and put new bedding on, never forgetting to put some material outside the nest available for the parents to carry into the nest and built it to their liking.

If you have the time, do post some pics of the little ones, we'd love to see them!

 

[joseph]

I will, but give me 2 more days

 

[joseph]

And as promised underneath you can find mu babues pics. Just onre question. Do you think they are suffering fron splayed legs ?

 

[aluz]

They are so cute!!
It seems the oldest ones have had their feathers plucked on their backs.
From those pics it doesn't seem they have splayed legs. Their legs all seem to be well tucked under their bodies.
If their legs don't seem like they are doing the splits, then they are fine.

You can also take the chicks out and place them on a towel or something and take a photo to be sure. If the oldest ones are walking well, that's a good sign too.

 

[joseph]

Yes I jave noticed the plucking for the past few days unfortunately from both paitlrs. What could be the problem? Cpuld it be maybe becausebI pook into the boxx too many? I usually check them 2 to 3 times a day.

 

[aluz]

There could be two reasons for their bald state. The first one would be lack of a good nutrition. The parents should be in top physical shape before being put up to breeding and on a special diet for the purpose. But if you have been giving them a good diet appropriate for breeding then this is not the cause.
The other would be over preening the chicks. Have you actually seen the mothers plucking the chicks back feathers? It just seems strange that both your lovebird pairs would do the same thing.

Those checks on the nest that you are doing, are very necessary and important because you need to know how the chicks are doing, if they are being well fed, if there are no signs of injury, etc.