help, problem Lori's

[kazzza]

Help!
I've never really owned birds before so I dont have a lot of experience.

I bought my first gorgeous little lorikeet a few weeks ago and he was the most sweet friendly little thing. He would come to the side of his cage and give kisses, loved a scratch on the head and we took afternoon naps together, with him asleep on my chest. he was very sweet and loving.

I was originally tossing up between getting one or two. I had originally ordered two little hand raised ones from a breeder, but one of them fell through though, so I only end up getting the one. I was still debating if I should get him a friend or not and a few days ago my partner surprised me and brought home another little guy as a christmas gift for me. They are both young handraised babies and were quite friendly, one is about 9 weeks, the other is about 14. They have both been dna tested and are both males. They made friends immediately and loved each other.

Awesome, you might say... , but only 24hours after bringing the second one home they have become really aggressive to people and we cant get near them anymore, they run away from us if we go near them and wont let us pick them up anymore or handle them. My partner persisted the other night and took one of them out of the cage and it bit him till he drew blood. We've tried everything to calm them down again. We've given them a few days to settle down, and persisted handling them, but it makes no difference. We are besides ourselves and dont know what to do. The only solution we can think is to get rid of one...

Can anyone help???

[angelicarboreals]

I don't have a pair of lories, but I do have one, and it sounds like your two birds have bonded rather quickly and don't want anyone to intervene on their apparent bond. I would not necessarily get rid of one of them, but if you are housing them together I would suggest splitting them up and see if that does not solve the problem.

[Rahni]

I agree, maybe try housing them seperately so you can work with each one seperately. I wouldn't force the issue and get them out if they don't want to, as it will become a negative experience for them and they may want to stay in their cages all the time.
Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will come along, but perhaps if they were housed seperately, you could get them out at the same time with you, and it would be a 'group' thing rather then just them together or just with you, if that makes sense!

[Lori~D]

First off I would have never put them together so quick. You have not had time to bond with either and If they didnt come from the same place a Quarentine period should have been about a month or you could have brought a dangerous disease home to your first Lory. To keep parrots bonded to humans is difficult in pairs to say the least so putting two together so quickley was the big mistake. Its real hard to keep pairs human friendly without establishing REAL STRONG bonds to human first - even then it can fail you if they were to go into breeding mode.
As for getting bit hard? Yes, it takes a long long time for a flock to allow a newcommer in. When you get a new bird you should never try to handle it or Insist it be handled until you have establish some trust unless you did this with the bird before bringing it home. To a bird its like going over to your new neighbors when YOU have just moved in and plopping your self on the couch and saying "hi, whats for dinner" without so much as a "good afternoon" in the yard first.

[Abby]

I have to say to the house them separately for awhile. Spend the one on one time with them at separate times. Lorikeets bites aren't fun. These guys are very young and the 9 week old would have barely weaned. There is still huge time to get them tamed down.

People to advertise birds as handraised, this may not mean handtamed as well. Shoving some food into a birds beak does go with the criteria of handraised but it doesn't mean that it's been socialised. I do wonder if this is the case with your guys.

It's just going to mean some extra work. Most lorikeets I know are inquisitive little creatures. If you can take them to a room (separately) that has limited distractions (bathroom works well for this) sit down with some kind of jingly toy and just every so often shake it they may well eventually come up to you on their terms and you can go from there. They need to get that trust with you first.

Time and patience and you'll get there.

[Abby]

Just found this written by a friend of mine. He does know his bird stuff. Hopefully it may help you with management a little or at least give you some explanations.

Lorikeets

[Rahni]

Excellent article Abby, sometimes you read these things and wonder if the author has ever actually owned a lorikeet, but not in this case! I like how he describes them as 'Jekyll and Hyde' birds, it is so true! One minute you have a sweet, cooing little love sponge, the next minute the 'lovesponge' is rearing up, barking, pupils dilating, pouncing around and squealing!

[Ashling]

That article is REALLY good for beginners... I forwarded to a friend of mine. The only thing is- I know lorikeets bite, but the article says they bite all the time, and often draw blood. Ash has only caused me to bleed once or twice- and it was a freckle sized speck of blood at that.