COLORFUL COMPANIONS

Long-lived, active and talkative, rainbow lories live up to their prismatic name.

It's obvious how rainbow lories got their name. The colorful feathers remind people of rainbows.

The forehead and front of the crown are bluish mauve, extending down on the front of the cheeks. The rest of the head is brownish black.

The neck is a yellowish green, and the breast is basically red, with bluish black edging. The upper part of the abdomen is dark green, and the lower part of the thighs and under the tail is yellowish with dark green edging.

Rainbow lories have 21 sub-species. Not all are found in captivity and even fewer in the pet trade. They come from New Guinea and the surrounding islands.

A rainbow lory and a rainbow lorikeet are the same bird, measuring about 11 inches in length. The difference between them equates to the difference between a parrot and a parakeet. "Lory" generally refers to a bird with a short tail, and lorikeets have long tails. However, some people use the words interchangeably.

Pet Quality

The lories are an ideal size for a house pet, smaller than macaws and most Amazons. They rarely develop screaming habits.

If properly cared for, the lory can live 30 to 40 years. Lories can be taught to do simple or fairly complex tricks. As with many hand-fed birds, lories are gentle and confident even when handled by strangers. However, they tend to bond with one person or territory and need to have a great deal of socialization and stimulation to stay a happy, healthy member of your family.

Lories are good talkers and often develop fairly large vocabularies. Retailers need to encourage owners to work with their birds and talk to them. Of course, you can never guarantee that-4 particular bird will talk.

If a customer has another bird, even another lory, plan on separate cages. Lories can become aggressive, especially with birds that are smaller than they are.

Housing

Lories are active birds and will use a cage as large as the owner can afford. A cage designed for an African grey or an Amazon would be good, as long as the spaces between bars are not larger than an inch. The minimum cage should measure 18 inches long by 18 inches high and 22 inches wide.

Perches should be chosen to suit the lory's feet. It's a good idea to mix perches, perhaps one cotton rope perch, one pedicure type perch and a couple of wooden perches.

Always have a cuttlebone in the cage to supply calcium and prevent beak overgrowth.

Lories need a variety of toys. Some lory favorites are bells, swings, rings, ping-pong balls and whiffle balls. Lories enjoy lying on their back and balancing their toys between their feet. They also enjoy snuggling, so a sleeping tent may be good.

Make sure the toys are designed for a small parrot, such a conure, rather than a parakeet or cockatiel. Lories could easily destroy a very small plastic toy.

To help the bird keep clean, place a suitable-sized birdbath in the cage on a weekly basis. Try misting a lory. Place the lory's cage below eye-level in a bright area free from drafts and direct sunlight.

Feeding

The lories have a major physical difference from other parrots. Their gizzards, where food is normally digested, are weak with very little musculature. They are not able to digest a diet of seeds.

The tongue of the lory is adapted with a brush like tip of elongated papillae, which enable the birds to collect pollen and press it into a form suitable for swallowing. In the wild they crush flowers with their beaks and then suck up the juice produced.

During this process the pollen released from the flower is packed neatly into wads by their rough tongues and easily consumed.

Because of this, these birds can be fed mainly nectar, but it can be combined with pollen, fruit and insects.

Specialized diets have been developed for lorikeets in captivity. These are pollen and nectar substitutes, and a number of reputable brands are now available.

Essentially, these come in two forms: a wet mix (nectar substitute) and a dry mix (pollen substitute), both of which are essential. Although these diets are designed to provide the essential requirements for lorikeets, they must be supplemented with other foods such as fresh fruits (apples and pears, stone-fruits, most citruses, banana, melon) and low-iron pellets created for lories and lorikeets.

Their liquid diet has given lories the reputation of being messy birds. But all birds are messy. Seed-eating parrots cover the area around their cage with seed hulls and tiny feathers, African greys and cockatoos cause the surrounding furniture to become covered with a fine, white powder.

Because lories have a mostly liquid and fruit diet, they consequently have liquid droppings. How much mess they make depends a lot on the individual bird.

If you have one that spends a good deal of its time sitting on a perch, rather than hanging from the side of its cage, then most of the mess will wind up on the floor of the cage.

On the other hand, if it's one that frequents the cage sides, a good deal of the droppings will end up outside of the cage.

They can "squirt," so develop some means to protect the surrounding area. A plastic chair mat on the floor is a good start, as well as some kind of washable protection for nearby walls.

Lories have extremely strong feet and sharp nails. They spend more time hanging sideways and upside down from branches, than sitting up. They will even hang from the side of the cage to eat rather than sit on a perch.

Lories learn that making a mess is not desirable. However, some of them have been known to purposely "squirt" their owners when the birds' wishes were not obeyed.

Some breeders have been experimenting with different ways of feeding lories. One possibility is pellets. These birds, when started at a young age, will adapt to eating pellets with no problem, because their tongues easily adapt to the extruded food.

Lories reared on pellets have feces that are similar to any parrot raised on pellets. When you buy lories from breeders, make sure that you know how the birds have been fed, and if they have ever tried pellets.

In an outdoor aviary, lories are the easiest birds to maintain, as all of their waste can simply be hosed away, no seed hulls to sweep up or sticky droppings running down the side of the cage to scrub off.

LORIKEET BASICS

• Buy a large cage for these active birds. Spaces between the cage bars should not be more than 1 inch.
• Make sure a lory has lots of toys and that you rotate them frequently. Lories are active birds and need stimulation.
• Lories are not good cage mates, so each lory should have its own home.
• Lories may attack other pet birds, so keep them away from each other.
• Buy a play gym for the lory with lots of room for acrobatics.
• Lories fed on nectar diets need lots of space, protected by a plastic runner, around their cages and play gyms. Nectar diets create runny droppings.
• Take your lory to the veterinarian every year for a check-up.
• Lories come from New Guinea and surrounding islands.
• If properly cared for, a lory can live 30 to 40 years.
• Rainbow lory or rainbow lorikeet? The words lory and lorikeet are used interchangeably.
• The lory's tongue is adapted with a brush like tip of elongated papillae, which enable the birds to collect pollen and press it into a form suitable for swallowing.
• Rainbow lories feed mainly on nectar, but can also eat some pollen, fruit and insects.
• Choose perches that are suitable to the size of the lory's feet.
• Lories often spend more time hanging sideways and upside down than sitting up.

Reprinted by Pretty Birds from Pet Product news by Sue Anderson

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