gave up on hand training but still enjoy the bond we have

[newbie123]

My Sweetie is still very young, probably around 4 months old and I have had him for about 2.5 months. He came from a pet store so never had any hand training before me. He’s always been very sweet but never ever likes being touched by me sticking my hands inside inside his cage. He tolerated a little step up but freaked out if I moved at all and then he would be resentful. 

I finally decided to just go with what his body language was telling me and stopped trying to touch him at all in that way. 

he shows me in so many other ways that he loves me and will allow me to kiss his tail feathers or wing tips if they are sticking out of the cage. He is not afraid of my face just my hands. He will also let me put my face right up to his if he is at the edge of his cage and I will kiss at him and he’s almost to the point he will kiss me back. He definitely likes it and doesn’t flutter away from this. It’s so sweet. 

I hope that maybe someday he will choose to flit onto my shoulder or something? But I’m just letting him decide the pace of it. 

Can anyone comment on if he may choose to be more touchy on his own pace as he gets older? 

[blueelephant]

I would keep working on the hands thing. Maybe holding a hand up by your face while you chat to him so he sees them nice and still more. How does he react when you put your hand in the cage to remove things or change food etc? Is that still as terrifying as stepping up?

Once he is not flapping about at the sight of a hand entering the cage I would try bribery. A hand holding millet so he has to eat from it if he wants the treat. Then millet in a hand at such a distance he has to step a foot on to reach it. Do all this with a nice still hand and go at his speed as you have been doing.

[newbie123]

He will eat millet from my hand but only if he is already at his perch first. He may hop onto my hand while eating but if I move at all he's done and then acts resentful for days about it. I will try offering while he's away from the perch and see what happens but normally he just goes directly to the perch if I try.

He is fine with my hands in the cage doing anything else so that is nice. Changing food, water, cleaning up, he will sit on his perch and observe everything casually and with interest.

He will only flap about if I put my hand directly toward him, no matter how slow or steady. He may calm down at his perch and accept millet like I said.  But it just seems like he's never going to be comfy enough to come out of the cage on my hand, for instance.  So that is kind of why I had given up and focused on other ways to connect with him.

[tweetiepiesmom]

Don't give up on the hand taming yet, some budgies take longer to be comfortable enough to get on your hand. Since he eats millet when you hold it up to him, start holding it just a bit further from him so he has to stretch to get it. Do that for a few days until he gets used to it. Then move it just a bit further. So he will need to put a foot on your finger to get it. Do that for a few days. Then try moving it a bit further so he has to stretch while he has a foot on your hand. Eventually, he get on your hand while eating. I've not had a budgie stand on my hand while I moved them out the cage. Others have been able to get theirs to do it. Once out the cage, my two will fly to me to eat millet.

[Hezz]

I agree with our two members’ replies in not giving up on getting accepting of hands, if for no other reason than a fear of hands could cause a fatal shock if suddenly you, or a vet, need to handle him. It sounds extreme but it has happened. It sounds like the kindest thing to do, to back off, but the reality is that it may be the worst.

[newbie123]

Ok thank you all for the encouragement. I’ll start with hand feeding millet again until he’s comfy with that again and will go from there.

I hand fed him some today where he was able to stay on his perch and just lean to eat it from my hand. But he was good with it and no resentment afterwards. I’ll try again later with him having to at least hop off the perch onto a dowel if he won’t do my arm or hand. So far so good.

Another question I have is that I don’t want to feed him too much millet and also when I do it is less effective to bribe him. Is every day too much?

[tweetiepiesmom]

You do want to keep the millet as a special 'treat' that he will recognize as a treat. You can feed him small amounts for training purposes several times a day, just break up the amount in small servings.


The millet I have grows on a stem and resembles baubles of millet seeds. I peel a bauble away slowly so it has its own stem that I can hold and it makes a good bribe serving.

[Hezz]

You don’t let him stand there and have a belly-full, or offer a whole sprig. Once he is aware that you come bearing gifts offer him just a bobble. If you not quite at that stage, cut the millet to a length so that he has to be close to your hands to feed. Alternatively you can offer him some of his own seed in your hand. For some this is more acceptable. This works best when the seed has been removed for some time and fresh veg has been the only other food choice.

[louises]

Sweetie sounds like a lovely little bird! I would also encourage you to keep trying, as I had a similar experience with Georgie. When I bought her two years ago I really wanted her to be hand tame, but she made it very clear that we were going to do things at her pace! I would say it's still an ongoing process even now.

I did exactly what blueelephant and tweetiepiesmom suggest with the millet. She is now quite comfortable stepping on to my hand, but she doesn't like it much if I move my hand. I would love it if she landed on my shoulder, but I don't know if she ever will, I guess it's what each individual bird feels comfortable with. I'm currently trying to encourage her to fly from her cage to my hand (for millet of course!). At the moment she'll only jump 10cm!

[tweetiepiesmom]

louises don't give up! My Tweetie Pie only flies to me if I'm holding millet. After having him and Buddy for three years, just recently has Buddy wanted to hang out with me. When he's out of the cage, he wants to sit on the back of my chair, my head, my shoulder, my eyeglasses or my hand. He likes playing with my fingernails and also has just recently become affectionate. Some birds just take a long time to get to that point. I'm not sure Tweetie Pie will ever get there but he does watch Buddy getting on me so maybe one day...

[louises]

Sept 23, 2022 15:47:48 GMT tweetiepiesmom said:

louises don't give up! My Tweetie Pie only flies to me if I'm holding millet. After having him and Buddy for three years, just recently has Buddy wanted to hang out with me. When he's out of the cage, he wants to sit on the back of my chair, my head, my shoulder, my eyeglasses or my hand. He likes playing with my fingernails and also has just recently become affectionate. Some birds just take a long time to get to that point. I'm not sure Tweetie Pie will ever get there but he does watch Buddy getting on me so maybe one day...

I'll keep trying then!  I'm always hoping....

[newbie123]

Hello, and an update on this post from several months back.

Back around the time of my original post, I did actually just stop altogether trying to touch or hold him. I also stopped trying to get him to eat millet from my hand. My reasoning was simply this: He had made it clear to me that he did NOT consent to being touched or fed by hand. So I finally accepted his non consent and then completely stopped trying.

I went about bonding with him in other ways. I sing to him and dance around the room, act silly, give lots of praise and encouragement, showed him various objects to interest him, I found particular movies, songs and TV shows he loves, discovered what toys he likes, I have a friend over and we sing kareoke twice a week and Sweetie loves this and sings along with us (he also loves my friend very much). So for several months I stuck to all of these other types of enrichment and bonding and never once tried to touch or hold or feed him by hand.

During that time I bird-proofed my place so that he could safely fly outside the cage. It was hard to trust the process because since I could not handle him I wasn't sure what would happen if I needed to get him back into the cage and he refused. That did not turn out to be a problem because he always always always happily goes back to his cage with no fuss at all (and no touching).

Then suddenly one day we had a breakthrough. I have been trying to get him off seeds and onto pellets, and the first day I tried just pellets and veggies in his dish with no seed he absolutely acted as if he was starving TO DEATH! Even though he actually only went a few hours without any seed but to him that was like a week of starvation.

By the time I caved and was going to give him at least a tiny bit of seeds, he immediately came out of the cage right to me, into my hands and gobbled that seed up. I stood there shocked and amazed because he has literally never willingly gotten into my hands for any food or any other reason. And directly after that, he spent the rest of the entire evening sitting on me, climbing around me, landed on my head, on my shoulders, sat on the couch with me and explored the blankets, got on the floor and chased my hands around for fun....I'm still sooo happy about this! That was on Valentine's Day and every day since then he has been a whole new bird.

I realize now the trick was that he had been eating way too much seed and therefore was always so full he wasn't motivated at all to do anything but hang out in his cage. So now I portion out his seed daily, and a lot of it he has to come to me to get it and either eat it from my hand or eat next to me while I am eating. BUT!! He doesn't only come to me for seed. Sometimes he comes just to see me and say hi, or because he's interested in my phone so he jumps on it in my hands, or sometimes just to sit in my hand and settle down and take a tiny nap.

After all that time where I did not try to touch or hold him at all, he finally trusted that I wasn't going to harm him with my hands and then once he made the transition to realizing that hands are actually food dispensers and play things, now he is so brave and sweet and trusting.

I cannot believe how much joy this sweet little creature brings me. My heart is so full everyday!

[Marianne Marlow]

What amazing progress. I'm so happy for you!