How can I break the final barrier with this budgie (parrakeet)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I have a young male budgie that I bought a few weeks ago; I’m trying to get him hand-tame; so far, we’ve got the the point where he will come out of his cage, fly around and land on things, including the floor and the arms of the chairs we’re sitting on; I can get my face really close to him - almost touching, but he’s still quite nervous of my hands.

My approach so far has been to move my hand slowly toward him, talking softly all the time; when he starts to look a bit nervous, I’ll either stop moving or back off just a little, then when he settles, I’ll move in again. I can get my fingertip to within half an inch of him, but progress seems to have stalled about here; any closer and he’ll start edging away (or if he’s not in the cage, he’ll just fly off).

Any hints or tips? I’ve tried offering him food on my fingertips, but he’s too freaked by the fingers to be interested in the food.

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Pretty straightforward: clip his wings ! This is pretty basic for finger training. He will jump and try to fly away, but it will be easy to get to him. When you corner him, you press your finger (side, not the tip) up against his belly until he steps up. Also good to start to associate a command, like “up” or “step up”, when you do this.
Once he’s on, stay calm, talk camly, and basically let him know that you are not going to hurt him. After a bit, put him on his perch or in his cage.
Keep working with him, and increase the time he is with you. And soon you will be inseperable.

Consider things from his perspective, this HUGE being wants to hold him. It takes some convincing that you’re not a danger to him. But be warned: budgie’s can be quite rambunctious. Once it sinks in that you will not harm them, they really start to push it ! They can be quite mischievous and playful. So be careful what you wish for.

3

By the way.

Get his wings clipped the first time, or ask someone to show you how.

It’s really easy, but make sure you know what you are doing. FYI it’s something you have to check. They don’t need many flight feathers to take off.

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Budgies? We don’ need no steekin’ budgies!

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Use a stick.

While he is in the cage, hold a small stick and push it into his belly slowly and say “Up!” Let him sit there, in the cage, for awhile. Then move him back to where he was in the cage and get him off the stick. Reach in with your hand and feed him Millet on the branch. Repeat the stick routine.

His thoughts: Hmmm…whazzat? A Stick! I sit on those all day…I guess it is safe. That hand over there is scary…but…it is over there, not here on my end of the stick. So I’m safe, I think. OK, now I’m back on my perch…Hmmm…whazzat? Millet?!? I Lurve me Millet! Gimme!!! So that big hand provides me food…can’t be all that bad. Munchmunchmunch. A stick again? OK, it wasn’t so bad the last time.

The next day do the same thing with the stick. Get him totally comfortable with the stick inside the cage…the stick is his moving perch. Continue to feed him with Millet branches by hand as this gets him used to your hand being in his cage providing him food. After a few days of this (really, don’t rush it, you’ll just get frustrated if you have to start over building its trust), move him outside of the cage on the stick. Keep him near the entrance of the cage in case he gets freaked and wants to jump back in. Now feed him on the stick with Millet from your hand. Put him back in the cage, or, build a perch on the lip of the cage door (unless you have a drawbridge door on your cage) by attaching one of the thick ropes from pet stores for birds to the entrance somehow.

After a day or two of outside on-a-stick hand feeding, try to get him on your finger inside the cage. Just hold him there. Then put him back on his perch, feed him some Millet, then try the finger again. Do this a few times over a day or three. Then, carefully and with millet in your other hand, pull him from inside to outside the cage with the millet near his face. He won’t notice he’s on your finger, outside of the cage because he’s eating the gift of the gods. Progress from there. I just got mine to chill on my shoulder by using the “love the millet so much I don’t notice anything else” trick. I pushed him off my finger with the millet stick onto my shoulder and then let him eat until he was too full to move. He fell asleep while I was watching TV.

If he is outside the cage now, are you having to grab him to get him back in the cage? BAD if you are. You never want to grab the guy with your big, scary hands. Get him used to the stick and then when you want him back in the cage, use the stick, not your hands.

This is a great website on budgies that I use and got my budgie on my finger within a week using the stick trick. I’m now trying to pet the guy, but he still snaps at my fingers, but he is getting better all the time. I’m really liking this new pet.

-Tcat

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He returns to his own cage unaided; I did have to catch him and put him back there the first time he came out, but only because it was getting late - I had my wife turn off the lights to prevent him flying, which enabled me to catch him - he was not amused though and he nipped me nearly hard enough to draw blood.

I have tried presenting him with a stick to hop onto, but he just avoids it or freaks out completely - he is initially wary of any item that approaches him or is introduced into the cage - even food items like millet sprays, which he will eye up for a minute or two before approaching, and it took him a whole day to trust the new cuttlebone I got for him.

But in spite of all that, he will actually let me approach him very closely to talk to him - really so that I can almost brush my face up against him, and he will land on the floor or on a chair near us without showing much fear… until the hands come into play.

He has a wooden play centre that he can perch on immediately outside his cage, but again, he’ll just fly off to the curtain rail if anything (except, oddly, my head) comes too close.

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Try to leave the stick in the cage, maybe hang it from string, so he gets used to it. Maybe make a swing out of it.

Also, they throw up food to say they love you…maybe hold a tiny spray of millet in your teeth and let him eat from that- might make him trust you more.

Forcing him to stay on your hand just seems like it will be met with too much resistence. Maybe back up and just keep your hand and stick in there for 15 minutes without doing anything. Then the next day try again and maybe move up to trying to get him on the stick.

Good luck-
-Tcat

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Ditto the wing-clipping. Be prepared, once he loses his fear of you he may turn into a little biting bastard. A few of the parakeets I owned over the years were like that, and I could never figure out why or break them of the habit.

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I ought to mention that I have managed to tame a budgie in the past, I just can’t remember how I did it (and maybe he was predisposed to it anyway).

I’m not sure about the wing clipping, only because this one has already demonstrated that he would rather fall off his perch than allow the dreaded finger to touch him; also, in order to clip his wings, I’d have to hold him, which he is bound to hate and this might destroy the trust that I have managed to build.

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I have never heard of anyone who has successfully finger trained a parrot without wing clipping. I can imagine that birds that are fully hand raised may be pre-finger trained, but this is a different case.

It does not sound like you have established all that much trust to be lost by your clipping his wings. But if this is a concern, have someone else do it (most pet stores that sell birds do it, and most vets will do it).

Again, this is not a natural thing for this bird to do. So it will take convincing him that this is okay. In my experience, even after clipping, it will take some chasing until the bird is too tired to flee, and you can corner them. But once they realize that you are not there to harm them, and actually sitting with you is okay, then it will be easier.
You also need to consider that there is a very practical aspect to your being in control - being able to gather him up when you need to. Not just for when he’s out and you want to go run an errand, but consider the situation when he’s out and there’s an emergency. You will need to be able to control, or he may be in danger.

The other thing to consider is keeping his wings clipped. Unless you have an aviary, having a flighted bird is asking for trouble. Not only is there the escape aspect (and the simple fact is that pet birds become cat food once they escape - they have not grown up with predators in their environment), but also just the “bad”/dangerous places they can get to.

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Maybe you could also try sticking something yummy like a bit of peach baby food or some other fruit to your wrist (it should be sticky so it doesn’t fall off of you). Then when you offer your finger to him he’ll see it and figure out that he must either get closer or actually get on your hand to reach the food.

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Well, you have no, but maybe we just got lucky - our first budgie was very tame and friendly and would socialise with me for hours; he also learned to mimic dozens of words and would fetch shirt buttons back if I threw them across the room. We never had his wings clipped… I just don’t remember how we broke the ice though.

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‘have no’ = ‘have now’ :smack:

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Progress report; I let him stuff his little face with spray millet today; I put the millet on his play centre so that he would stay down off the curtain rail.

When he returned to the cage, I broke off a little bunch of millet, reached into the cage and hung it loosely on the bars; he pecked at it, but it fell before he’s eaten more than a few grainsl; I picked it up and put it back; after a few dozen repetitions of this, he seemed to begin to understand that The Hand is not The Enemy. When he had settled, I tried approaching him with my finger held horizontally and he will now let me rest it gently against (actually in contact with) his belly for ten seconds or more; he still panics a bit if I press him to hop up on my finger, but this still seems like a significant step in the right direction

Patience and persistence will get us there, I’m sure of it now.

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I too finger-trained mine without clipping. The stick method worked just as advertised in the link I gave.

Hand = food = good thing. Hope it works out. I’d recommend going SLOW now…You’ve made some progress, but I wouldn’t get over ambitious. Just spread it out over a few more days before you try anything new/drastic. And I’d still try the stick. But thats just me.

Good luck!

-Tcat

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How’s the bird?
-Tcat

17

Progress continues, albeit slowly; I can tickle him around his cheeks and neck without him complaining, most of the time, and he will land on chairs next to us, walk up and gently nibble our arms. We’ll keep trying, but it’s starting to look less certain that we’ll get him finger trained before he’s completely set in his ways.

He seems to be mimicking speech a little, but there’s nothing distinct or regular yet.

18

Sounds like you’ve got it licked. I always used the stick+“UP” command technique, and it always worked. The nice thing about it is that you can eventually teach the budgie to just step onto the stick by saying ‘up’, then when you substitute your finger you don’t have to do anything scary like push your finger against him - you can just put it in front of him and say ‘up’, and he’ll get the idea.

I’ve had some great budgies, and they can become very tame. My favorite one used to fly down in the mornings and wake me up by landing on my chest and stomping back and forth chirping at me. Then I’d get up and head for the kitchen, and he’d follow behind me, walking on the floor, even though he could fly. Then he’d hop up on my cereal bowl and eat a little cereal with me. He had a little wagon with a perch on it, and he’d amuse himself at the table my climbing on the perch and flapping the little cart along. And he just loved getting his neck scratched. He’d actually demand it. I’d be reading and he’d fly over, march over to my hand, and jam his head between my fingers.

19

Wow, mine is finger trained, but I can’t touch him otherwise. He nips at my fingers if I try to come near him to pet/scratch. And he is quiet - rarely peeps, let only speaks.

BTW- I’ve never clipped wings before…does it mean they completely lose the ability to fly, or just that they cannot fly very far (or gracefully)? Can they glide from the top of a bookcase back to their cage, or do they step off and drop?

-Tcat

20

Once you train a bird to step on a stick, you can try drooping the end of the stick: the bird walks “uphill” naturally, until they stroll onto your hand. Then the problem is he will want to keep strolling until he can stick his tongue in your ear.
Keep offering food with your hand and petting his head. Parrot bossiness will compel him to step all over your fingers and scold you.