Taming a budgie? (Uhm, long post, lots of info.)

Hi guys! I posted here once about a month ago after having newly received a pair of budgies... Then got very busy with school and life and despite reminding myself to check back, never actually did. :c First tho, I want to thank the person that gave me the peanut butter suggestion before, because it worked and Gabe now plays with multiple toys and seems quite a bit happier. (He's even started harassing the cat less, which is even better.) He likes things that make noise.

Anyway... we're (sadly) having some behavior problems with these boys. :C I knew since they were store-bought birds that they would probably be less people-oriented and we would have a hard time getting them used to us... Maybe I'm doing something wrong, though, because when I reach into the cage, even to swap the food out, wipe down the bars, etc. it's like I'm still some kind of evil creature that needs to be bitten to death. Okay, really the problem isn't Pluto so much... Gabe is the one determined to end my hands.

I know why this is... I found out, not too too long after when I posted here, that I was gifted birds from two different stores. Don't ask me the reasoning behind it. I haven't got a clue. I freaked out a little about quarantine when I found out but by then they had already been together for roughly two weeks and trying to separate them just caused distress for everyone involved, them included. :/ It's like they're convinced they're brothers.

Anyway... Plu is from a small "family" store. This is the place I thought both birds were from. The guy who runs the place takes excellent care of his animals and his birds are in very good condition. Pluto grew up with the large majority of his company being other birds, but he's tame and doesn't bite. Stepping up is still beyond his trust but I'm hopeful, because he trusts people enough that we were able to get him clipped without a hassle and he let me hold and examine his wing just today after he managed to get one stuck in the bars of the cage somehow. So... he knows people aren't bad, he just doesn't want much to do with them.

GABE on the other hand... is from one of those large chain pet stores where they just have teenagers my age working. I had wondered why Gabe's wings were clipped like they were... I assumed it was maybe because he was so aggressive they'd gotten a little messed up somehow in the process, like he flailed at the last second or something. No, what PROBABLY happened was some kid grabbed him and just hacked the ends of his poor feathers off. Maybe that's part of why he hates hands so much. Anyway, I was in that pet store not long ago for toys for my cat, and I took a look at the section with the birds and just wanted to die. They have SO MANY budgies, all crammed into the same cage, about 3 inches off the floor. Two hanging toys in the cage being taken up as impromptu perches by some of them, so no wonder Gabe didn't know what to do with the ones I gave him... WHILE I was watching a little kid ran up and started rapping on the bars. He didn't get told off until the clerk saw the look I was giving him. The only good points I could see were that the food was fresh and the paper they had down was clean.

THAT is where Gabe came from, though. Overcrowded, probably harassed every day of his life by drooling 7 year-olds.

When I put my hand in the cage, he either runs from it or tries to bite it, depending on how much space he has to get away. I have to take precautions that he can always get to the far side of the cage or risk bleeding bites. And just sticking my hand in the cage is enough to get him screaming, even if it's nowhere near him. The screaming upsets Pluto and gets him started squawking too... :/ What makes this even sadder is that as long as I'm not trying to touch anything Gabe'll sit and chirp at me and watch me type and everything else. He knows his name and everything.

It makes taking them out for free flying time a hassle, too... I'm not sure if it's his lousy clip job (the ends are so ragged, it's like they used those plastic crayola scissors!) or living in such cramped quarters but Gabe cannot fly. He can't get more than a couple of inches off the ground. Clipped birds are supposed to be able to SORT OF fly aren't they? In short little spurts anyway? Pluto can, after being clipped... Gabe just flails around pathetically until he bumps into something. If I try to catch him, he'll sit on my finger for a moment to get his balance, then bite me and jump away. I actually wanted Pluto clipped just to help keep him from getting hurt... Gabe is more calm and doesn't flail everywhere as much now that Plu can't go and sit on top of a shelf without him. They can now sit outside their cage for a couple of hours at a time... Sadly, Gabe doesn't even want to move off of it. He'll climb out, but sit on top, and watch Pluto inspect everything in the room.

Long story short, though, I have made zero progress with Gabe since bringing him home. Other than that he knows his name now, he's like a wild animal. I'm lucky Plu is as sweet as he is; even though progress with him is very slow, it's happening. But not Gabe... None. Zip. Nada. After a month shouldn't he at least be O.K. with my sticking my hand in the cage to change the food? :/ Or am I being impatient to feel that way considering where he came from? Is there hope of bonding with him at all, or should I settle for just trying to get him to tolerate my fiddling with their cage...?

It depends on how the bird is trimmed. Certain trim can allow the bird to glide instead of a fall. I let my parakeets do what they like, as least they don't bite me when I do catch them from the aviary to give them their bath. When I used to raise Parakeets I've noticed they can go wild pretty quickly IF not handled often. I used to sell them to a small local pet shop and I told the owners many times that they MUST play with them often to keep them tamed. I go in the shop and trim their nails for them and give them play time since I was the one that raised them in the first place. On the ones that don't know you well from the beginning, it's easier to separate them apart to train, when there's more then one, it's harder to train.

I don't plan on having my keets breed cause I don't want any babies when there's plenty of keets out there....Plus they get into everybody's business, they visit my too and tease the tiels. They're comical little birds!!!

Good Luck with your training!!!!

I did read that somewhere about the different trims... but I have a hard time believing his wings are supposed to look the way they do. The ends are so ratty and he has no control at all if he gets in the air... :c

I try to interact with them as much as I can. I sit by their cage, I whistle to them, I play music for them, if I'm feeling brave I'll open the cage door and set my hand near it just to see what they do. ONCE Pluto climbed up on my fingers. Gabe had a spazz attack. I mean.. I spend most of the evening in the same room as these birds. If it's a day I don't have school, most of the DAY. Enough time that my cat is starting to get jealous because he thinks I'm ignoring him... :/

I really don't want to separate them if there's any other way... Though I might not have a choice for a different reason. This last week they've spent a lot more time out of their cage, and the last couple days Pluto has been brave enough to come sit with me some. (As long as I don't try to pet him or touch him in any way he'll sit on my knee or my shoulder for a few minutes at a time.) Gabe really hates that. I've had to stop him from chasing poor Pluto around the cage multiple times already... :/ What a mess. I love my boys so much already and I feel like I'm the one messing this up for them.

EDIT; This has taken a turn for the worse. I was setting the room up to let them out (I have to shoo the cat out and give him something to occupy him, and check the screens on the door, make sure nothing loose is sitting around they could land on that would fall) and Pluto seemed excited to come out... and out of nowhere Gabe just jumped on him. I ran over and grabbed Plu out of the cage and closed it up so Gabe couldn't come out.
Poor Pluto... he's not hurt... or, he doesn't look like it. I checked him over as much as he would let me. He was shaking pretty hard and he sat on my shoulder for maybe 10 minutes (longer than he usually does) until Gabe started chirping for him... he flew back over to the cage before I could do anything and sat on top of it. The way their cage is shaped there are two "floors" and the top one is smaller than the bottom. Plu is on the "roof" of the first floor where Gabe can't reach him right now... Looks like I'm gonna have to get them separate cages after all.

I've been learning to be super-patient with my new budgie. All the books say to handle them every day, from the moment you get them. I expected it to take a month or so, but after a few weeks, found that I was scaring my bird more than taming him. We've since tried a new tactic. I put my hand in his cage every day, holding it still, never reaching for him. He has become more trusting of my hand, and now I can sometimes reach to stroke near his beak. He still won't let me skritch his head (I want to sooooo badly sometimes!), but we'll get there some day. I think the key is that I've backed off a bit. There is forcing a bird to get used to you, and there is teaching them that you're a friend, not a foe. I think backing off and desensitizing Keats to my hand has helped tremendously. Now, we can work on true taming and removing him from the cage, toweling, etc.

Good luck with Gabe, and with Pluto

One other thing I've been trying is allowing my budgie to make choices about when he comes out of his cage and when he goes back in. I open the cage door, and if he wants to come out, he can. I also let him go back into his cage of his own choice, setting him near the open door. He then has the choice to go back into his safe place, which is really what his cage is for him.