Budgie people help with taming

Pampa

New member
May 24, 2018
116
2
Northern Ca
Parrots
Jazzy Pizazzy, Jenday Conure ~
Corbin, Nanday Conure (little Crow) ~
Lucky & Mojo, the Budgies ~
Pampa Blue Crown Conure lost 6/18/2019 ā˜¹ļø
I got my granddaughter a hand fed baby budgie. We chose this one because it jumped right onto me and climbed up to my shoulder. Itā€™s super tame and friendly but desperately lonely. I have the budgie halftime and she has it halftime and there is no way we can spend more then a few hours a day with her. Turns out she is a small scruffy sassy friendly girl. I went back to the pet store and bought the last of the hand fed babies. This one is definitely male, larger prettier and better at being alone and playing with toys. Every morning for six weeks before breakfast I put my hand and millet in the cage. He is getting better but my god! Surely you all no how uncomfortable that is. If I move at all, or slowly scratch my nose outside the cage he is still spooked and flies from my hand. All he has to do is be finger trained and then I will move them in together but I donā€™t know if I have the patience to wait six months or a year. Meanwhile Little Lucky has adjusted to living alone but is still alone too much of the time. If I give up on the male and move them in together will it make the little girl named Lucky less tame. They have been together outside the cage or him in his cage and her outside. She feeds him. She is very assertive so I wonder if she will be a good cage mate for him. They sure are different. What if they never live together and just live next to each other in separate cages. If we do that they will still be separated the weeks that Lucky goes to live with my Granddaughter because her dad grumbles carting one cage back and forth already.
Thanks in advance for your advice.
P.s. not that I would ever breed them but I think they are from two different klutches but all handfed together.
 

hannah7733

Member
Aug 20, 2019
42
4
Norwich, UK
Parrots
Budgies (Puff, Peewee, Pixel and Poochie), Cockatiels (Pippy, Poppy and Petra), Kakariki (Pikachu RIP)
I've not had hand fed budgies but it does sound strange that your male hand fed is so scared. With ant bird you have to work with their personality, on their terms and at their speed. That said you want to spend as much time with them as possible, even if its just sitting next to the cage and reading. You want to read the birds body language so that it doesn't feel the need to fly away, once you notice signs of it being scared then stop, don't move away but just stop whatever you're doing until they calm down. This might mean that you approach the cage and if the budgie looks frightened when you're 2 meters away then you stop there, sit down, talk to him gently, no fast movements and once hes calmed down spend a little more time there and leave. Come back frequently repeating the same thing as much as you can and then once you're at the cage put you hand against the bars, not moving until he knows your hand isn't going to hurt him. Then you can try resting your hand in the cage, holding millet or not. All you want to do is gain your birds trust. You have to try and see things from his point of view - some giant scary creature is putting their claws in his safe place. That's why when I've got a bird comfortable with my hand being near them then I will continue training OUTSIDE of the cage. The wings shouldnt be clipped, the bird needs to feel able to escape a threat (you) if he wants to. You dont want to force your bird to be with you, you want him to choose to be with you. And once youve gained their trust and spent lots of time with them they will seek out your company.

As for keeping him with your female, introducing another bird shouldnt make your female less tame as long and you continue spending time with them to keep the bond. BUT she will most likely prefer the company of the male to yours. It does depend on how deep the bond is though. My eldest budgie Puff could not love me more, and when I got two babies (at the same time) at first she was curious about them and spent more time away from me than normal. Now the novelty has worn off a bit and shes back with me most of the time but of course she'll go and play with them too. The babies however, because I got them together they havent got as strong bond with me because they bonded to each other. I tamed both of them still, both will step up and sit on my shoulder but are much more interested in doing their own thing.
 

Laurasea

Well-known member
Aug 2, 2018
12,593
10,702
USA
Parrots
Full house
Hannah, gave great advice. It just takes as long as it takes. After one year my Cloudy will come eat from my hand. I haven't really worked with him but he wants to be part of the other parrot action, such a cute little being
 

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