Lovebirds can get jealous when you do have a built a strong bond, particularly if you’re hanging with someone else in its presence. The same applies if a lovebirds mate is being courted by another. You’ll notice them becoming more aggressive whether it be shreaking more aggressively, taunting the other party and even biting them.

There’s are a few more tell tale signs showcasing a lovebirds jealousy, which I’ll be going further into within the remainder of this article so, keep on reading to find out!

How Can You Tell Your Lovebird Is Jealous?

Lovebirds are aggressive when they’re jealous, especially when someone else is taking a pair bonded person or lovebirds attention away from it.

They may act or show the below behaviours:

• Attempting to bite the other party
• Chasing the other party around
• Lunging at them
• Screaming directly at the opposition
• Crouching with their beak open

In other instances the lovebird could be emitting signs of unhappiness without directly acting against the opposition, actions which include the following :

• Crouching with their head down
• Weaving from side to side warning the other party
• Flared tail Feathers along with ruffled feathers

Some of these unhappy signs won’t always mean your lovebird is jealous but, it’ll give you a rough idea as to what behaviours your bird may start displaying to show you it’s displeased or jealous by the lack of attentiveness.

These little parrots are known to form bonds and if you’ve built a great bond, it’s possible for your lovebird to consider you a part of its flock or even as an actual pair bonded mate.

This jealousy could even be worse if your lovebird only hangs with one member of the family. In turn they can eventually develop a mate like relationship therefore, it’s important to nip this possibility in the bud sooner rather than later otherwise their lack of a bond with family members, whether your partner, your siblings or even your child can become a nuisance.

This issue ultimately starts from the moment you get the bird. However, if your lovebird is too far gone, it still is possible to stop or at the very least minimise this hostile behaviour.

What May Cause Your Lovebird To Become Jealous

The most common reasons include:

• A new pet in the house
• A new baby taking up your attention
• A stranger or friend walking into your home
• They may be more hormonal

If you notice your tiny parrot displaying jealousy, potentially as a result of hormones or as a result of your attention being on others, it’s probably best to keep your lovebird temporarily caged up so it doesn’t randomly attack the opposite party.

How To Minimise The Jealousy

It’ll be a very gradual process and would require that you’re very involved. You’d even have to keep a constant eye on the bird so it doesn’t do anything you wouldn’t want it to.

If say your lovebird does start attacking your baby, puppy or a friend, what you should do is pick it and immediately put it back in its cage or where ever its designated naughty corner is. Don’t shout at it, just put it back to a corner and make it aware that it’s in the wrong.

Once your lovebird begins understanding the wrongdoings of it’s previous behaviour and attempts to better itself, the more yous should praise or feed it a treat to inform that you’re pleased when it’s calm as opposed to aggressive.

A great first step would be to place a blanket on your bed and then place the lovebird and some of its toys there. If it remains on the bed and plays without causing a ruckus, praise this behaviour with a positively or with treats.

Start taking its toys away and watch its behaviour, if it doesn’t over react or chirp at you annoyingly, praise it again as this is another step in the right direction.

Eventually you can start introducing family members, pets and friends to the lovebird and if they finally start reacting positively to them, be sure to shower the lovebird with even more praise as this would be the end goal you’re really looking for.

Although on paper this seems like an easy training method, in reality a lot of time would be necessary until the lovebird achieves this state of acceptance and as a result would be friendlier to others.

Summary

So yeah, lovebirds can become very jealous little birds if they’re not trained or placed into a new environment with the intention of being friendly, whether it be only you or another giving the lovebird its full attention or due to the hormonal periods that these rose cheeked avians go through.

This may become a major issue later down the road if the little bird starts considering you as it’s mate. Of course you can nip this behaviour in the bud by allowing other family members to get used to them or even train them to be more tolerant of others or new beings as a whole.

As long as you’re willing to teach your lovebird how to be less jealous to some degree, it won’t always be possible to completely remove this negative quality. After all, tiny parrots like lovebirds will still follow through with their natural instincts in a good number of occasions.

References

https://birdsupplies.com/blogs/news/144105991-parrot-jealousy-unraveled

https://animals.mom.com/learn-lovebirds-body-language-9742.html