One of the reasons why I named my site babylovebird is because I adore love bird babies, not that I don't like them when they become adults, but there's just something so sweet and innocent about a little love bird that comes to your hand and chirps for food from you and then runs away to find his/her other little love bird baby friends to play with when they're full. Here are just some some of my baby pictures that I've gathered over the past couple of years. Most or all of them are of babies at weaning time or earlier.
This picture was taken when I got my first acrylic cage. They're good for display but they get dirty really easily with all the plexiglass and poop! Please don't think that I normally keep so many birds together. This was only done since the babies were still being handfed and so young. In general all of my birds are kept in pairs.
I think it's so cute how those little love birds just have to sit next to each other on the perch, even though a couple of them are about to get squished off. The bird on the right standing on the cup is one of my Whitefaced Medium Double Violet Pieds. She's one that I've kept and bred. She's only 2 years old, but now a grandmother!
Here are some baby pictures from 2005, Yep that baby with the red tail is indeed my AC Opaline, and the Green Violet Pied on the bottom right is the bird I have on my Green Violet Pied page.
I't's always really hard deciding what babies to keep, especially when they're so colorful looking.
Here is another picture of the same clutch. I remember that I had a bunch ofWhitefaced Medium Violets last year in that set. See if you can recognize all the mutations. The 4 Violet looking birds are Whitefaced Medium Violets. The bluish bird on the right I think is a Whitefaced Blue that I kept(which I named Lola). The Green baby hiding is a Medium Green bird(see how dark the green is). The light greenish bird with the red rump and head is an American Cinnamon Opaline. The bird with the reddish face is the Green Violet Pied, and the bird on the right is his brother a Whitefaced Violet Pied, and the bird on top with the yellow on his head was also a Whitefaced Violet Pied.
Here is a picture that I just took at the end of August of 2006. Here are the genetics of the parents.
Green Opaline/American Cinnamon?/Blue?/WF? Male x Whitefaced Medium Double Violet Pied Hen. I think the mother is actually the baby that was shown in the first picture above. All 5 baby were green series birds, and there are 4 pieds. If the mother is truly double violet, then every single one of these birds will be a single violet. The fuzzy down is characteristic of both Opalines and Pieds. I'll know whether any of these babies are Green Pied Violet Opalines as soon as their rumps come out, because the rumps on the Opalines will have red in them. You can also tell that they're pied, by looking at the flight feathers coming in. You can see some are going to have dark flights and yellow flights by looking at the pin feathers coming in. The one baby that doesn't have the yellow fuzz will most likely turn out to be a Green Violet. I've never had a clutch with 4 pieds, so it's exciting!
Here are some September 2006 Baby pictures. These 10 babies are currently on 3 feedings a day. On the far right there is a WF Australian Cinnamon Violet.
Here's another picture of the babies. You can see 2 dark greens on the bottom. An OF Dark Australian Cinnamon baby above that.
Here are the 10 babies again. On the left is the Dark OF Australian Cinnamon with the grey rump, and to the right of that is a Dark Green Pied also with a grey rump. Lots of little cuties in this clutch!
Which baby is bigger? The Whitefaced Australian Cinnamon Violet or the Dark Green Pied? : )