It can take weeks before lovebirds actually commence building nests, so it's good not to lose hope too soon. Once lovebirds are ready to breed, they can complete their nest in 4 to 5 days.

The first egg is laid within 10 days after mating, then one more every other day. The female usually starts brooding after the second egg has been laid. After 5 to days, you will be able to tell if the eggs are fertile. Hold each egg against the light, and you will clearly see a dark spot surrounded by some blood vessels. After a week, the eggshell becomes somewhat darker and has a bluish haze. Infertile eggs, by contrast, are transparent and turn yellow.

When eggs are infertile, it doesn't necessarily mean that the couple that produces them is infertile. Hereditary infertility exists but isn't very common. In most cases, you can attribute infertility to the physical condition of the parents. Make sure housing, feed, and care up to par, and try again. If the second clutch of eggs is also infertile, try to get the female into the proper rhythm of the breeding process by transferring eggs from other nests with large clutches.

One type of "infertility" may be caused by human error; you may accidentally have put two females together! You will discover that this problem exists when you get a double clutch of infertile eggs.

Foster parenting:

The usual clutch contains four to six eggs. If you have larger clutches of properly fertilized eggs, place the extra eggs with other females that have fewer or infertile eggs. Keep track of the transferred eggs by marking them very softly with a black felt-tip pen.

You don't need to worry if transferring eggs requires giving them to a different species of lovebird. Most lovebirds make excellent foster parents and will raise the young of different species. The peach-faced lovebird, for example, will accept young from the masked lovebird and the Fischer's lovebird. If you don't have lovebird couples available for foster parenting, you can substitute cockatiel or even red-rumped parakeets (Psephotus haematonotus).

Be sure that the eggs you transfer are about the same age as those laid by foster mother. The main reason for this is that the bird starts producing its "crop milk" during brooding so it can properly teed its young in the first day after hatching. If you place eggs that are ready to hatch under a female that has just started brooding, you will interfere with this natural process. As a result, the transferred young die or become so undernourished they never grow into healthy birds.

Depending on the species, brooding takes 22 to 25 days.

Hand rearing:

If chicks from large clutches are abandoned and you don't have foster parents available, you can try raising them by hand. I have seen people hand feed very young, naked birds with good results, but birds over 10 days old have a better chance to be raised successfully.
Young hatchlings (up to 10 days old) should be fed dy and night; start, say at 7 A.M and continue evry 2 to 3 hours. If you go to bed at midnight, you can do the night feedings at 3 and 5 A.M (Uggh!) That's the closest you can come to the work of natural parents, who feed whenever the little crop is empty.

Young hatchlings will suck warm liquid food from a plastic spoon. Older lovebirds can be fed with a hypodermic syringe with an 8F or 10F tube attached. Put the end of the tube into the crop very carefully before ejecting the food. (Ask your veterinarian or an experienced breeder to demonstrate this procedure).

The best type of food to use, I have found, is Gerber's High Protein baby food, mixed with warm water 100F (38C) to a thin consistentcy; add some finely chopped sunflower seed (without hulls), a pinch of Limestone, and a few drops of vitamin-mineral supplement. Keep the food warm; for lovebirds under 10 days, keep the food at 89.6F (32C) or a little warmer. Various commercial baby bird feeding formulas are also available with detailed "how-to" information.

Place hand-fed lovebirds in a shoebox with the bottom covered with white felt or a similar absorbent soft material. Keep the young warm with a heat lamp, and prevent variation in temperature will probably become quite restless and constantly try to leave the shoe-box. It's best, then, to transfer them to a box cage.
Hand raised lovebirds are extremely tame and affectionate to the person who raised them.