Is it okay to leave the nestbox's door open?

Minipal · Feb 3, 2020

I'm trying to get my female budgie less scared of me, cause everytime i open the nestbox she thinks im going to harm her children (17 and 15 days old).
Is it okay to leave the nestbox's door open for some minutes or even more? Or will it make the budgie babys cold, or will the female feel uncomfortable with it?

itzjbean · Feb 3, 2020

Yes in my opinion, opening the box and getting the babies used to you as early as possible is important..as a breeder myself with a goal of wanting tame babies I would also handle the babies daily. The nestbox also needs cleaned periodically so my birds got very used to be going in the box after a few weeks.

I try to wait when parent birds are busy eating before I take the babies out, otherwise they get aggressive. It helps using a paper plate to block the entrance of the hole once they're out and then get the babies out (and clean the nestbox) this way. DO you plan on letting the parents raise them to weaning or are you pulling to hand feed? Hand fed babies will be the tamest but parent fed babies make better breeders down the road and prefer birds over people usually.

Rozalka · Feb 3, 2020

The best and easiest way of taming babies is like Itzjbean mentioned - taking them out the nestbox every day for few minutes. I'll add one thing - when you take them out, the babies should be in parents' sight range. When parents don't see them, they may be so nervous

Hand-feeding has better effects but is more challanged

bug_n_flock · Feb 3, 2020

I agree and disagree with the above. I am also a breeder, but I usually don't bother with hand feeding. I find that as long as you are committed to playing with them daily, for longer periods as they get older, they will be friendly when they leave the nest. Parent raised also has some psychological and health benefits for the little ones. But I have hand fed in the past and ended up with healthy friendly babies as well.

Our little Hima was not hand fed, and she is as sweet as pie to absolutely everyone. Never bitten a person, ever. So a lot of it is personal preference. Hand fed is probably the "easiest" way to ENSURE sweet babies, but it also can be quite difficult to do especially on little parakeet babies.

Minipal · Feb 4, 2020

itzjbean said:
Yes in my opinion, opening the box and getting the babies used to you as early as possible is important..as a breeder myself with a goal of wanting tame babies I would also handle the babies daily. The nestbox also needs cleaned periodically so my birds got very used to be going in the box after a few weeks.

I try to wait when parent birds are busy eating before I take the babies out, otherwise they get aggressive. It helps using a paper plate to block the entrance of the hole once they're out and then get the babies out (and clean the nestbox) this way. DO you plan on letting the parents raise them to weaning or are you pulling to hand feed? Hand fed babies will be the tamest but parent fed babies make better breeders down the road and prefer birds over people usually.

I did take the babies out and handled them, but when i tried to get them back to the nestbox, the mother screamed (squawked) super loud and jumped at my hand and bite me really hard. When the babies heard their mother scream they started screaming too inside the nestbox.
I think its traumatic for them.
Also when the mother is out of her nestbox for eating, she can recognize from meters my moves, so when i make the smallest move she get scared and runs as soon as possible to the nestbox, so i never get there before her to put something on the entrace of the nestbox.
She's really aggressive.
Should i wait with it?

Is it okay to leave the nestbox's door open?

Minipal

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itzjbean

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Rozalka

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bug_n_flock

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Minipal

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They’re home!!!

URGENT: Budgie lays egg at the floor of the cage!

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