How to Take Care of Love Birds

Select a cage roomy enough for your energetic lovebird. Buy a fairly large cage as lovebirds need the room to expend energy. Single birds can live in cages that are 2 x 2 x 2 feet high. Buy a cage with wires that are close-set and secure the door with latches or bendable wires. Place the bird in the cage and allow it to acclimate to its new surroundings.

Feed your love bird water and species-appropriate, nutritious food daily. Use one dish for water, which needs to be changed daily, and one dish of specially formulated love bird pellets. Along with the pellets, cut up fruits and vegetables like carrots, mangoes, grapes or spinach for your love bird. Give your pet fresh food every day. If it does not eat all the fresh food in four hours, remove the food from the cage. As a treat, you can give the love bird millet spray, but take care not to give too much. Wash the bird food dish and water dish daily with warm water and dish soap.

Handle your bird daily. Everyday, you must take it out of its cage and have it walk on you and play on you. Those that are not handled constantly can become skittish and nippy. Make sure you have a bird that was hand raised so that it is comfortable with human contact. Let the bird fly around as well; just make sure all windows are closed, ceiling fans are off and other pets such as dogs and cats are not around. You can also attach a bird leash to the bird to control where it flies.

Buy toys for your love bird to play with when you're not around as you cannot play with your love bird 24/7. Buy it a variety of bird toys such as mirrors, swings and ladders, so it can be amused when it's on its own. Love birds also love to chew so buy it raw hide toys as well. Along with store bought toys, give the bird unprinted pieces of paper that it can strip to keep it occupied. Toss in empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls it can play in.

Provide a cuttle bone to keep the beak in top form. Place a cuttle bone in the love bird's cage so it can nibble on it to condition its beak. Also install branches of willow or fruit trees to keep the nails trim. Sometimes the nails can get too long. If this happens, trim the nail yourself by using bird nail clippers to trim the nails. Hold the foot up to the light so you can see where the vein in the nail is. Trim the nail past the vein or quick. If you do clip the vein, place styptic powder on the bleeding nail tip to stop the bleeding.

Include a shallow dish of water in the cage for the love bird to preen in. Love birds enjoy bathing. You can also spray it lightly with water once in a while. Set the spray to mist. This helps keep the feathers healthy.

Clean up after your bird. Love birds need to live in clean cages. Clean the cage once a week. Ideally, you can clean the cage whilst the love bird is flying around and playing outside the cage. Wash the entire cage floor and all surfaces such as perches using bird cage cleaners that can be bought at the pet store. Once a week, disinfect the cage with a bleach-water mixture. Mix ¾ cup bleach in 1 gallon of water. Disinfect all surfaces thoroughly, with the exception of metal surfaces. Rinse off all the bleach solution and put the cage outside to dry in the sun. Any toys, wooden branches and perches that become too dirty with droppings should be tossed. Replace with new toys, branches and perches.