Peach faced lovebirds

Question
Hello, I bought the two lutinos she had availbe both are 7 weeks old and very very friendly. I have them in a different cage in my bedroom...my fathers male lovie is in the living room. She thinks both lutinos are females....and heard something before of most lutinos being females....do you know anything about this? and in regards to breeding if my father would lend me his lovebird for a few months could the three live togther during breeding? would the male pick one hen or would he mate both? Or in your option should I just get a male of my own as I would have to seperate the male and give him back later on weathers if I had my own male the pair could live together forever. I apprecate any advice you can offer, thank you.

Answer
Hi again, Tara.

Lovebirds must be DNA sexed in order to differentiate between sexes.  It is not true that most lutino lovebirds are female.  There's no way the breeder would know the sexes of these lovebirds without DNA sexing them.  

Breeding parrots isn't like breeding dogs or cats.  Parrots and most other types of birds mate for life.  Therefore, you can't just "borrow" another bird for a few months.  When you pair birds up, it's usually for life.  There can be exceptions to this rule, such as one bird out of a pair becoming sterile or one of the birds in a pair passing away.  Parrots have to pair-bond with each other before they will even consider mating/breeding.  In other words, just because we put 2 birds together in a cage, this doesn't mean they will like each other enough to pair-bond and eventually mate.  Some birds just don't get along with each other.  This is a risk we take when we buy parrots.  

Also, when you breed parrots, you should only keep the breeding pair (2 birds) in a cage together.  Keeping more than 2 pair-bonded (breeding) birds per cage is usually a disaster.  Therefore, you should not keep 3 birds together in a cage when 2 of them are breeding.  The male would not mate both...he would bond to only 1 of the females, and then it would be for life.  

Lovebirds should be at least 18 months to a year old before you should allow them to mate/breed.  

I recommend you not get any more birds, especially for breeding them, until you learn a lot more about birds and the breeding process, etc.  Visit my website for more information:

www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html

Another good site:  www.birdchannel.com

Chrys