is it possible to get my parakeet to be playful/cuddly/puppy like my conure?

[Sarvesh]

today i had my budgie from petsmart exactly 2 months, 3 weeks and 1 day. I can get her to step up on my finger and eat millet, and a couple times i got her to come out of the cage on my finger, but even though i leave her cage door open all day she seems to prefer to stay inside her cage :/

but i seen peoples videos on youtube of their budgie being playful and cuddly as a conure!!! though i hear that only happens if u buy a hand fed/hand raised budgie from a breeder. any of you got a petstore budgie that is cuddly/playful?

im working on converting to pellets again, i gave up converting a couple weeks ago but trying again starting today.

also she has a very nice and big cage with good toys and perches, maybe her cage is too nice and she doesn't want to come out lol.

what else can i do to try to get her to trust me? its very frustrating cus even if i bring my finger close to her (without millet, like if i try to give her a headscratch) she starts side stepping and getting scared or flying up to a higher perch

otherwise i basically just hand feed her milly on my finger daily, and talk to her a lot and keep her cage door open.

 

[Sarvesh]

like look at these budgies!! they fly off into unseen distance, then still come back to the hand!! :'(

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=supJbd63leU"]Parakeet free flying lessons for kids - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Mimsy01]

The budgie I had as a kid was very sweet and playful, we were extremely tight. He was completely wild when I got him. As far as training, well I was in maybe 5th grade, it was summer so he got all my attention. Which was in no way the correct way to do do things, I chased him from what side of my room to the other (he was fully flighted) until I caught him and then I would hold him till my fingers bled and then we did it again. Once I got him to stay in my hand I kept offering him human foods. We ended up the best of buddies. He learned how to open his cage and follow me around the house and had a very large vocabulary.

This almost 40 years ago and I had no idea what I was doing. But you know a childs tenacity and Cookie didn't get overly traumatized.

Always makes me want parakeets again when I think about Cookie.

 

[Amanda_Bennett]

It is possible, but it takes a lot of time and patients. I had one and it took me probly about 6 to 8 months to get him to want to be out of his cage and with me. Even longer to get him to totally trust me and love me.

 

[Sarvesh]

The budgie I had as a kid was very sweet and playful, we were extremely tight. He was completely wild when I got him. As far as training, well I was in maybe 5th grade, it was summer so he got all my attention. Which was in no way the correct way to do do things, I chased him from what side of my room to the other (he was fully flighted) until I caught him and then I would hold him till my fingers bled and then we did it again. Once I got him to stay in my hand I kept offering him human foods. We ended up the best of buddies. He learned how to open his cage and follow me around the house and had a very large vocabulary.

This almost 40 years ago and I had no idea what I was doing. But you know a childs tenacity and Cookie didn't get overly traumatized.

Always makes me want parakeets again when I think about Cookie.

so are you saying its a viable method? i had another friend tell me she had a parakeet and she would hold it still and lightly scratch her until she became calm and she was able to get the bird to come to her on command within a few days of owning it!! her reasoning was when a budgie hatches and you start hand feeding it, they are very scared and try to escape, but you grab it and feed it or else the bird dies, so they are scared at first but then trust you cus they know you arent hurting it.

and if they still bond and trust you, is it really a bad thing to do?

that being said i have not once yet grabbed my parakeet so im hoping in time she will trust me, but it definitely gets VERY frustrating this way! especially when my conure got on my shoulder within 5 minutes of seeing me for the first time :/

i have heard a few people tell me it can take 6-8 months, so hey next week will be 3 months, so maybe i am half way there to 6 months sometimes i feel like maybe she is dumb cus her head is so small but i seen all kinds of intelligent things budgies can do so trynna be patient and hold out!!

 

[Mimsy01]

Nope, not saying it's the way. I literally have not had a parakeet in almost 40 years. My parakeet was a sweetheart, so I guess it did work, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say there is probably less stressful viable means of gaining their trust. Thought it may take more time than the way I did as a child.

 

[JerseyWendy]

You may find this thread to be quite helpful. Patience, Grasshopper. I'm confident your budgie will come around. http://www.parrotforums.com/general-parrot-information/49144-tips-bonding-building-trust.html

And no, you should not ever up and just grab him (unless it's a life threatening situation, of course).

 

[Flboy]

Is this the same little bundle you are trying to teach to eat parrots? May get messy!

 

[DannyA93]

Em what you don't wanna do is force the budgie to do anything. It about patience and moving at the birdies pace! I definitely wouldn't recommend grabbing him and forcing him to sit on your hand for half an hour. I went in steps. First of put my hand near the cage or on the outside of it, once they were comfortable with this then I moved forward to putting my hand in the cage, just at the door nothing crazy and in a fist so you're not threatening, once he's comfortable with this try holding a long sprig of millet for a while by a perch and wait for him to come to you to have some(this may take anywhere from 10 mins to an hour depending on how comfortable the budgie is and if you didn't move too fast in the beginning steps and from there you can slowly try contact like maybe lightly touching a toe and moving back eventually you'll see that he's getting more and more comfortable with you in the cage and physical contact and just keep taking it step by step from there!