Tips for staying motivated on taming? How late is too late?

[Hezz]

Getting two new birds together makes taming that much more difficult, and more so for a novice. There are two things I would suggest you do first. One is to return the birds to each other, make sure that the cage they are in is plenty big enough, and keep only one of the smaller cages as a possible travel/hospital cage. The second is to reset your expectations on what these two can give to you. Hope for improvement and acceptance but expect nothing is going to change, especially in the short term. Keeping them apart is not going to win you any friends at all, particularly if they are in the same room but kept apart.

You need patience, you need to be persistent, have a routine going that you can adhere to, and you need to persevere regardless of the setbacks. Be prepared for them never to be tame, sitting on your finger preening your hair type of budgies as they have each other and you are not really seen as one of the flock.

Go back to the basics of offering millet in the cage. Once they will approach you to nibble on it while you hold it, try moving your hand and the millet so that they have to step onto you to reach it, and don’t try to push them into doing anything until you are all much more comfortable with each other.

[tweetiepiesmom]

Hezz has given you great advice. Your two birds have bonded to each other and keeping them separate is stressing them out, particularly Blue who is trying to get back to Yellow. Once you put them back together, they'll calm down and you can start taming them again. It sounds as if you'll have more success taming Blue. Several times a day (every day) walk up to their cage and talk softly to them. Blink, don't give them the predator stare. Initially keep you hands behind your back so they are not worried about what you'll do with your hands. After a bit (you'll get a sense of when) hold your hands up against your chest. Then start putting your hands against the outside of the cage and finally inside. When they are out the cage, walk up and talk to them. Get as close to them as they'll allow you to without flying away. Keep offering them millet and as Hezz says, gradually move it away. Initially they'll really stretch to get the millet and then will stand on you to get it. Don't get discouraged, this may take some time. Good luck!

[tweetiepiesmom]

I forgot to add, whenever you do anything in their cage like changing their water or giving them food, move very very slowly. Its best to wait until they are out of the cage to take out perches, etc to clean. If you get them a new toy, hang it outside the cage for 3-4 days until they get used to seeing it.